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Nature of Suit Code: 710
Nature of Suit: Fair Labor Standards Act
Cause of Action: 

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1According to District of Columbia wage law, a "split shift" is "a schedule of daily hours in

which the hours worked are not consecutive, except that a schedule in which the total time out for

meals does not exceed one (1) hour shall not be considered a "split shift'." D.C. Mun. Regs., tit.

7, § 999.2 (1986). 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Filed April 5, 1996

No. 95-7158

ISABEL ARIAS, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES SERVICE INDUSTRIES, INC.,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cv02261)

Carol R. Golubock, Orrin Baird and Eunice H. Washington were on the briefs for appellants.

Joel I. Keiler was on the brief for appellee.

Before: EDWARDS, Chief Judge, SILBERMAN and GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM: The District Court entered judgment in favor of defendant United States

Service Industries, Inc. ("USSI") in a suit brought by several of USSI's employees under the Fair

Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") and the D.C. Minimum Wage Act seeking compensation and

liquidated damages for unpaid overtime and split-shift1 wages. Arias v. United States Service

Industries, Inc., Civ. Action No. 93-2261 (D.D.C. June 9, 1995) ("Judgment on the Verdict for

Defendant"), reprinted in Appendix ("App.") Tab 6 at 105-07. We find that the District Court

misapplied the law governing the parties' respective burdens of proof on the overtime pay issue;

accordingly, we clarify the present state of the parties' burdens and remand the overtime issue for

further proceedings. In addition, we find that appellant Isabel Arias is entitled to actual and liquidated

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damages for unpaid split-shift wages, and, as to that claim, we direct the District Court to enter

judgment in Ms. Arias' favor in the amount of $3,733.50.

I.

Appellantsin this case are six employees of USSI, a janitorialservice company that employed

appellantsto clean office buildingsin Washington, D.C. and Maryland. Appellants claim that, during

the period from November 1, 1990 through August 31, 1994, USSI often failed to compensate them

at one and a half times their regular rate of pay for hours worked at overtimei.e., hours worked in

excess of forty in a given workweekas required by the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1) (1994).

Appellants assert that USSI's failure to compensate them for overtime was partly due to the

fact that USSI did not keep records of total hours worked and total wages paid on a workweek basis,

asrequired under FLSA regulations, 29 C.F.R. § 516.2(a) (1995). Rather, contrary to the applicable

regulations, USSI compiled records showing only total hours worked pershift during semi-monthly

pay periods. For obvious reasons, these records make it extremely difficult to calculate overtime pay

for time worked in excess of forty hours per week.

USSImaintained two types of records on which an employee's hours were contemporaneously

recorded: time cards and sign-in sheets. USSI was unable to produce all of appellants' time cards

and sign-in sheetsfor the period at issue (some records apparently having been lost during two floods

and others having been destroyed by rodents), but all ofthe relevant time cards and sign-in sheetsthat

USSI did have for appellants were included in appellants'Exhibit 8, which the District Court accepted

into evidence. Brief for Appellants at 4.

One of appellants' witnesses, a legal secretary named Stephanie Collins, attempted to

summarize the voluminousrecord oftime cards,sign-in sheets, and payrolldocuments. Her summary

was labeled Exhibit 16 at trial. In her testimony, Ms. Collins explained how she created Exhibit 16.

She copied the information from the time and payroll records on calendars for the months in issue.

For each appellant, Ms. Collins attempted to convert USSI's records into a summary showing the

total number of hours worked in each workweek, along with the number of workweek hours, if any,

for which the employee had been compensated at the overtime rate. Exhibit 16 showed that each

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2USSI also argues that Exhibit 16 was flawed because Ms. Collins was not aware that a

pretrial order issued in the case had excluded hours worked at certain locations from

consideration. Brief for Appellee at 8. Appellants respond that the pretrial order imposed no

such limitation. Reply Brief for Appellants at 7. On remand, the trial court is free to interpret its

own pretrial order in assessing damages. 

appellant was owed some amount of unpaid overtime wages.

At trial, USSI put in no evidence of its own showing appellants' overtime hours and wages;

rather, USSI merely sought to discredit certain aspects of Ms. Collins' methodology in constructing

Exhibit 16. For example, where the payroll records indicated that compensation was paid, but no

notation had been made regarding the number of hours being compensated by the payment, Ms.

Collins divided the gross payment by the employee's regular pay rate to determine the number of

hours for which the employee was being compensated, and plotted that number of "hours worked"

on her calendar summary (presumably dividing the hours evenly over the workdaysin the pay period

in which the check issued). USSI contended that Ms. Collins' treatment of unmarked checks failed

to take account of USSI's alleged practice of issuing make-up checks for overtime wages after the

pay period in which the overtime hours had been worked, a practice of which Ms. Collins was not

aware.2See Brief for Appellee at 8.

At the close oftrial, the District Court summarily ruled from the bench in favor of USSI. The

trial court concluded that Ms. Collins was "beyond her depth" in constructing Exhibit 16, and that

the "inferences" she drew in summarizing the underlying documentation provided in Exhibit 8 were

actually "guess[es]." Transcript of Ruling, App. Tab 6 at 106-07. In particular, the District Court

noted that "some of the assumptions [Ms. Collins] used in creating Exhibit 16 would have been

incorrect if certain employer practices, such as make-up overtime checks, had been in place." Id. at

107. Significantly, the trial court found that the evidence produced at trial had not actually

established the existence of a make-up-check practice, but, rather, had only established that Ms.

Collins did not know whethersuch a practice wasin place. Id. Nevertheless, the trial court ruled that

appellants had not met their burden of making "some sort of just and reasonable inference as to what

should have been paid and what was in fact paid." Id. at 106.

II.

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We find that the District Court erred as a matter of law in failing to rule that appellants had

met their burden of proof, and also in failing to hold USSI to its burden of coming forward with

counter-estimates of appellants' overtime hours and wages, asrequired by Anderson v. Mt. Clemens

Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680 (1946). In Mt. Clemens, the Supreme Court established the framework

for allocating burdens of proof in cases brought under the FLSA for unpaid wages or overtime

compensation. Under Mt. Clemens, an employee bringing suit "has the burden of proving that he

performed work for which he was not properly compensated." 328 U.S. at 687. However,

where the employer's records are inaccurate or inadequate .... [t]he solution ... is not

to penalize the employee by denying himany recovery on the ground that he is unable

to prove the precise extent of uncompensated work. Such a result would place a

premium on an employer's failure to keep proper records in conformity with his

statutory duty....

Id. Rather, the Court held that,

[i]n such a situation ... an employee has carried out his burden if he provesthat he has

in fact performed work for which he wasimproperly compensated and if he produces

sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just

and reasonable inference. The burden then shifts to the employer to come forward

with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to negative

the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee's evidence. If the

employer fails to produce such evidence, the court may then award damages to the

employee, even though the result be only approximate.

Id. at 687-88 (emphasis added).

In light of the evidentiary difficulties appellantsfaced as a result of USSI'sfailure to maintain

accurate time and payment records by workweek, and to denominate clearly the number of hours

being compensated by some payments, appellants' construction and presentation of Exhibit 16 is

sufficient to establish an amount and extent of work and wages as a matter of just and reasonable

inference as contemplated by Mt. Clemens. We find nothing unduly speculative about the inferences

drawn byMs. Collinsin creating Exhibit 16 as a summary ofthe voluminoustime and payrollrecords,

especially in light of the employer's complete failure to comply with the law in maintaining payroll

records. "The employer cannot be heard to complain that the damages lack the exactness and

precision of measurement that would be possible had [it] kept records in accordance with the

requirements of ... the [FLSA]." Id. at 688. The burden is now on USSI to come forward with

evidence supporting its own counter-estimates of appellants' overtime hours and wages; unless USSI

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is able to present such evidence, judgment must be entered for appellants in the amountsspecified in

Exhibit 16, "even though the result be only approximate." Id.

Therefore, asto the overtime issue, we vacate the District Court's entry of judgment in favor

of USSI and remand for further proceedings. On remand, the District Court may determine the

propriety of allowing USSI to present and substantiate any counter-estimates it may have, and the

District Court must then compare appellants' estimates andUSSI's counter-estimates, ifany, in setting

the amount of damages.

Further, the District Court must determine whether the acts or omissions giving rise to USSI's

violation were in "good faith" and whether USSI had "reasonable grounds" for believing that such

acts or omissions were not in conflict with the FLSA. If the District Court fails to find "good faith"

and "reasonable grounds," appellants will be entitled to both actual damages and liquidated damages

(equal to actual damages) under 29 U.S.C. §§ 216(b) & 260 (1994). See Thomas v. Howard Univ.

Hosp., 39 F.3d 370, 372-73 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

Finally, regarding the range of damages to be awarded, the District Court should determine

whether the violations were "willful," such that appellants would be entitled to the three-year statute

of limitations period provided for under 29 U.S.C. § 255(a) (1994), instead of the otherwise

applicable two-year period, id. See, e.g., Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 567 F.2d 429, 461-62

(D.C. Cir. 1976) (The court rejected "a definition of "willful' in the suit-limitation provision which

would demand proof that the employer entertained a bad purpose or an evil intent;" rather, the court

held that an employer's noncompliance with the FLSA "is "willful' when he is cognizant of an

appreciable possibility that he may be subject to the statutory requirements and .... consciously and

voluntarily charts a course which turns out to be wrong."), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1086 (1978);

accord Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 740 F.2d 1071, 1085-87 (D.C. Cir. 1984), cert. denied,

469 U.S. 1181 (1985).

III.

One appellant, Isabel Arias, has claimed that, in addition to overtime wages, she is entitled

to damages for unpaid premium wages for split shifts that she worked as an employee of USSI.

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District ofColumbia wage law in effect during the period when Ms. Arias worked split shiftsrequired

that "every employer shall pay an employee for one (1) additional hour at the applicable minimum

wage for each day during which the ... employee works a split shift." D.C. Mun. Regs., tit. 7, §

908.1 (1986) (emphasis added). The District Court made no findings as to Ms. Arias' split-shift wage

claim, but USSI does not dispute on appeal the number of split shifts that Ms. Arias claims to have

worked or her assertion that she was not paid an additional hour ofminimumwage for each such split

shift.

Rather, USSI argued before the District Court, and in its brief before this court, that the D.C.

split-shift wage requirement issatisfied where the total amount paid an employee for each workweek

in which a split shift is worked is at least equal to the total number of hours worked, plus one extra

hour for each split-shift day, timesthe minimum hourly rate required by D.C. law. USSI relies on the

testimony of its former payroll manager, Devra Holmberg, who stated that she called the D.C.

government for an interpretation of the split-shift law and received the above interpretation from an

unnamed D.C. employee. Moreover, USSI asserts that its interpretation of the D.C. split-shift

requirement comports with Dove v. Coupe, 759 F.2d 167, 171-72 (D.C. Cir. 1985), where this court

held that the relevant time period is the workweek, not the individual hour, for determining whether

an employer hassatisfied the minimumwage requirements ofthe FLSA and the D.C. MinimumWage

Act.

We find USSI's proposed statutory construction to be specious. The D.C. split-shift

requirement is clear on its face in mandating that a premium is owed "for each day during which the

... employee works a splitshift," D.C. Mun. Regs., tit. 7, § 908.1 (1986) (emphasis added), regardless

of the amount paid to the employee for the entire workweek. Moreover, USSI's reliance on Dove

v. Coupe is misplaced, because the court's ruling in that case specifically relied on a finding that the

purpose behind the generalminimumwage provision was "met by the workweek standard," 759 F.2d

at 171, whereasthe apparent purpose of the split-shift wage requirementto provide additional pay

as a premium for working onerous shifts that extend the workday, see Brief for Appellants at

37would be frustrated by focusing attention on the workweek instead of the workday. The statute

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3Like the FLSA, the D.C. Minimum Wage Act requires that an improperly compensated

employee receive liquidated damages (in addition to actual damages), unless "the employer shows

to the satisfaction of the court that the act or omission that gave rise to the action was in good

faith and that the employer had reasonable grounds for the belief that the act or omission was not

a violation of this subchapter." D.C. CODE ANN. § 36-220.11 (1993). 

is clear, and USSI cites nothing to the contrary in the case law of the District of Columbia.

Because it is undisputed on appeal that Ms. Arias worked 393 split-shift days during the

three-year limitations period provided under the D.C. Minimum Wage Act, D.C. CODE ANN. § 36-

220.12 (1993), and because it is also undisputed that $4.75 per hour was the lowest minimum wage

applicable during that period, see Brief for Appellants at 43, we conclude that Ms. Arias is entitled

to actual damages in the amount of $1,866.75. Further, we find that USSI's failure to abide by the

D.C. split-shift wage requirement was based neither on good faith nor on a reasonably grounded

beliefthat USSI's conduct wasin accordance with the wage law; accordingly, we hold that Ms. Arias

is entitled to liquidated damages in the amount of $1,866.75.3 Therefore, as to appellant Arias'

split-shift claim, we reverse the District Court's entry of judgment for USSI and direct entry of

judgment in favor of Ms. Arias in the amount of $3,733.50.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the District Court isreversed in part, and vacated

and remanded in part for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

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