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Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 14, 2013 Decided June 4, 2013

No. 12-7064

LOUIS P. CANNON, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cv-00133)

Matthew August LeFande argued the cause and filed the 

briefs for appellants. 

Richard S. Love, Senior Assistant Attorney General, 

Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, 

argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were Irvin 

B. Nathan, Attorney General, Todd S. Kim, Solicitor General, 

and Donna M. Murasky, Deputy Solicitor General.

Before: HENDERSON, GRIFFITH and KAVANAUGH, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: Like many state and local 

governments, the District of Columbia has passed laws against 

“double-dipping”: the simultaneous drawing of both a pension 

and a salary by a retired employee who has been rehired by the 

District. The District enforced a law aimed at curbing 

double-dipping against the six plaintiffs, sharply reducing their 

salaries by the amount of their pension payments. We hold that 

the plaintiffs’ federal challenges to this action are meritless 

except in one respect. In slashing three of the plaintiffs’ 

salaries, the District overstepped the boundaries of the Fair 

Labor Standards Act. 

I

The plaintiffs are retired from the Metropolitan Police 

Department (MPD). During their time with the MPD, they 

contributed portions of their salaries to the Police Officers’ and 

Firefighters’ Retirement Plan (Retirement Plan), which

provides retirement and disability benefits to employees of the 

MPD and the District of Columbia Fire Department. Upon 

retirement, each of the plaintiffs began receiving annuities

from the Retirement Plan.

Under § 5-723(e) of the D.C. Code, the salary of a retired 

MPD employee drawing on a Retirement Plan pension, who 

has been rehired by the District, is offset by the amount of the 

pension payments:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the salary 

of any annuitant who first becomes entitled to [a 

Retirement Plan pension], after November 17, 1979, 

and who is subsequently employed by the government 

of the District of Columbia shall be reduced by such 

amount as is necessary to provide that the sum of such

annuitant’s annuity under this subchapter and 

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compensation for such employment is equal to the 

salary otherwise payable for the position held by such 

annuitant.

D.C. CODE § 5-723(e). In other words, the statute requires the 

District to reduce the salary of employees who simultaneously 

draw money from the Retirement Plan. Other state and local 

governments across the nation also forbid double-dipping by 

employees. See, e.g., Connolly v. McCall, 254 F.3d 36, 43 (2d 

Cir. 2001) (per curiam) (New York’s “policy of preventing 

receipt of a public pension while also receiving a public salary 

reflects the notion that such simultaneous income streams 

could constitute an abuse of the public fisc.” (internal quotation 

marks omitted)); Mascio v. Pub. Employees Ret. Sys. of Ohio, 

160 F.3d 310, 312 (6th Cir. 1998) (describing an Ohio statute

preventing double-dipping by state elected officials).

Between 2008 and 2011, the District rehired the plaintiffs 

to work in its Protective Services Police Department

(Protective Services), a local law enforcement agency that 

protects government agencies and property. Notwithstanding 

§ 5-723(e), through the end of 2011, the District paid the 

plaintiffs their full salaries while they continued to receive 

Retirement Plan annuities. On October 12, 2011, however, the 

District sent the plaintiffs letters notifying them that in 

November it would begin reducing their salaries by the amount 

of their pension payments. The plaintiffs were told that they 

could choose to suspend those payments as an alternative to the 

salary offset. None did. November passed, and the 

double-dipping continued.

With the coming of the new year, however, the District 

followed through on its warning and enforced § 5-723(e) 

against the plaintiffs. The effect was dramatic. One of the 

plaintiffs, Harry Weeks, received no pay for the first pay period 

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of 2012 after the District deducted the amount he received in 

pension payments from his Protective Services salary. 

When the plaintiffs learned that the District had reduced 

their salaries, they immediately filed suit on January 26, 2012,

claiming numerous violations of federal and D.C. law arising 

out of the salary offset. Two weeks after the plaintiffs sued, the 

District fired plaintiff Louis Cannon from his position as chief 

of Protective Services. At the same time, the plaintiffs 

discovered that the District had not paid them by direct deposit 

for the preceding pay period. Instead, they were issued paper 

paychecks. The plaintiffs amended their complaint on 

February 14 to allege that the firing and the missed payday 

were retaliatory.

Only the plaintiffs’ federal claims are at issue in this 

appeal. Three of the plaintiffs assert that they did not receive 

the minimum wage required by the Fair Labor Standards Act 

(FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., and all of them claim that: the 

salary offset violated the Fifth Amendment, the manner in 

which the District administered the offset violated the Equal 

Protection Clause, and the District violated the First 

Amendment by retaliating against them for filing their suit. On 

February 23, 2012, the District moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ 

suit, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. The 

plaintiffs also moved for summary judgment on the FLSA 

claim. On July 6, 2012, the district court entered summary 

judgment for the District on the FLSA and First Amendment 

claims, and dismissed the plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment claims 

under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The district court declined to 

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’

remaining D.C. law claims. See Cannon v. District of 

Columbia, 873 F. Supp. 2d 272, 287-88 (D.D.C. 2012).

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The plaintiffs timely appealed, and we have jurisdiction 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Summary judgment is 

appropriate when “there is no genuine dispute as to any 

material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter 

of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a). Our review is de novo. 

Figueroa v. D.C. Metro. Police Dep’t, 633 F.3d 1129, 1131 

(D.C. Cir. 2011). We also review a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal de 

novo and affirm if, accepting all allegations in the plaintiffs’ 

complaint as true, they have nevertheless failed to state 

plausible grounds for relief. Winder v. Erste, 566 F.3d 209, 213 

(D.C. Cir. 2009).

II

We first address the FLSA claim brought by plaintiffs 

Sheila Ford-Haynes, Gerald Neill, and Weeks. They allege that 

the District has failed to pay them the federal minimum wage 

required by the FLSA since January 2012, when the District 

began applying the salary offset. Weeks also claims that the 

FLSA entitles him to overtime. In response, the District asserts 

that these employees are not covered by the FLSA, and that the 

District had no obligation to pay them minimum wage and 

overtime.

An employee is entitled to the federal minimum wage and 

overtime unless specifically exempted by the FLSA. See Smith 

v. Gov’t Emp. Ins. Co., 590 F.3d 886, 892 (D.C. Cir. 2010). 

The employer bears the burden of demonstrating that its 

employee is exempt, and exemptions are “narrowly 

construed.” Havey v. Homebound Mortg., Inc., 547 F.3d 158, 

163 (2d Cir. 2008) (citation omitted).

The District contends that Ford-Haynes, Neill, and Weeks 

are exempt under the terms of § 13(a)(1) of the FLSA because 

they are employed in a “bona fide executive, administrative, or 

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professional capacity,” as those terms are defined by 

Department of Labor (DOL) regulations. 29 U.S.C. 

§ 213(a)(1). One such regulation requires that employees 

exempted under § 13(a)(1) be “compensated on a salary basis 

at a rate of not less than $455 per week . . . , exclusive of board, 

lodging or other facilities.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.600(a); see also 

Orton v. Johnny’s Lunch Franchise, LLC, 668 F.3d 843, 

847-51 (6th Cir. 2012) (describing the “salary basis test”); 

Hilbert v. District of Columbia, 23 F.3d 429, 431 (D.C. Cir. 

1994) (same). 1 To be “compensated on a salary basis,” an 

employee must “regularly receive[] each pay period on a 

weekly, or less frequent basis, a predetermined amount 

constituting all or part of the employee’s compensation, which 

amount is not subject to reduction because of variations in the 

quality or quantity of the work performed.” 29 C.F.R. 

§ 541.602(a).

The crux of the dispute is whether Ford-Haynes, Neill, and 

Weeks receive less than $455 per week in compensation; if so, 

the District fails the salary basis test and they are covered by 

the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime requirements. Both 

parties agree that the amount each of these plaintiffs receives in 

their paychecks has fallen below $455 per week since January 

2012. There is likewise no disagreement that if these plaintiffs’ 

annuities are counted as compensation, they are paid well 

above $455 per week, and the District is entitled to summary 

judgment.

 1 The employer must also demonstrate that its employee 

performs duties associated with “bona fide executive, 

administrative, or professional” employees, as set forth in DOL 

regulations. Orton, 668 F.3d at 846 (citation omitted). The plaintiffs 

do not dispute that their duties fit the exemption. The dispute is 

whether they are “compensated on a salary basis.”

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We hold that the District may not count these plaintiffs’ 

annuities as compensation for purposes of the salary basis test. 

Under no reasonable reading of the term can the pension 

payments be considered “compensation” for these plaintiffs’

current work. Rather, the money they receive from their 

pensions is a retirement benefit, earned over the course of their 

past employment with the MPD, not their present work for the 

District. The pensions were funded in part by the plaintiffs’ 

own required contributions, which were automatically 

deducted from their MPD paychecks. See District of Columbia 

Retirement Board, District of Columbia Police Officers’ and 

Firefighters’ Retirement Plan, Summary Plan Description –

2007, at 9 (2007), available at http://dcrb.dc.gov/publication/

police-officers-and-firefighters-summary-plan-description

(last visited April 23, 2013).

2 There is no connection between 

their pensions and the work they currently perform for the 

District, and thus no sense in which their annuities constitute 

“compensation” for that work. 

Conversely, as the plaintiffs correctly argue, their 

compensation comes in the form of the salaries the District 

pays them. But the District slashed those salaries. As

paychecks in evidence demonstrate, Ford-Haynes, Neill, and 

Weeks did not actually receive $455 per week in pay once the 

District began applying the offset. Thus, the District cannot 

carry its burden of showing that these three plaintiffs are 

compensated “at a rate of not less than $455 per week.”

The District argues that the annuities became 

compensation through the operation of § 5-723(e). According 

 2 The District of Columbia Retirement Board administers the 

Retirement Plan. This document, which summarizes the operation of 

the pension fund for its beneficiaries, is available on the Retirement 

Board’s website. We take judicial notice of its contents. See FED. R. 

EVID. 201.

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to the District, because the D.C. Code required the District to

reduce the plaintiffs’ salaries so that the sum of their annuities 

and the “compensation for [their] employment” equals the 

salaries they were otherwise entitled to receive, the annuities 

are the functional equivalent of salary. That is not a reasonable 

reading of the D.C. Code. Section 5-723(e) provides no 

authority for the District to claim that pension payments may 

be “included as salary,” Appellee’s Br. at 21, or that they have 

been transformed into compensation. Indeed, the statute 

explicitly distinguishes between the annuities and 

“compensation.” See D.C. CODE § 5-723(e) (stating that a 

re-employed annuitant’s salary “shall be reduced by such 

amount as is necessary to provide that the sum of such

annuitant’s annuity . . . and compensation for such employment

is equal to the salary otherwise payable for the position . . . .” 

(emphasis added)). 

The District also asserts that the plaintiffs’ pension 

payments should be considered compensation because the 

plaintiffs were given the choice between accepting the salary 

offset and suspending annuities in the letters the District sent 

them in October 2011. Asking the plaintiffs to choose between 

losing their pension payments and taking a pay cut to satisfy 

§ 5-723(e) does not convert the annuities into compensation 

for purposes of the FLSA. Indeed, placing this choice in the 

plaintiffs’ hands merely underscores the salient point in our 

analysis: their pensions are not contingent upon their current 

work. The District could not force the plaintiffs to suspend 

receipt of the pension payments. Whatever else it may have 

authorized the District to do, § 5-723(e) surely does not allow 

the District to interfere with their pensions. It directs the 

District to reduce the salaries of double-dipping employees, 

while leaving annuity payments unaffected. Had the District 

invoked § 5-723(e) to reduce the plaintiffs’ salaries to $455 per 

week, it would be in compliance with the FLSA. But for these 

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three plaintiffs, the District went further. The choice described 

in the October 2011 letters does not muddy a record that is 

sufficiently clear: the District has paid these three plaintiffs

less than $455 per week since January 2012.

Ford-Haynes, Neill, and Weeks do not receive the $455 

weekly compensation necessary to qualify for the exemption as 

“bona fide executive, administrative, or professional” 

employees. Because the District raises no other defense, we 

hold that it has violated the FLSA. We therefore reverse the 

grant of summary judgment against Ford-Haynes, Neill, and 

Weeks on their FLSA claim and direct that summary judgment 

be entered for those three plaintiffs on that claim. As the parties 

have not briefed the issues of back pay and liquidated damages, 

the extent of the District’s FLSA liability remains to be 

determined. On remand, therefore, the district court should 

calculate any back pay and damages to which these plaintiffs 

may be entitled under 29 U.S.C. § 216.

III

The district court found the plaintiffs’ constitutional 

claims meritless, and we agree.

A

All of the plaintiffs claim a “cognizable property interest” 

in the simultaneous receipt of their annuities and full salaries. 

The District’s use of the offset, they argue, amounted to a 

taking and interfered with that property interest. The plaintiffs 

seek to avoid the force of § 5-723(e) by arguing that it has been 

superseded by amendments to § 1-611.03(b), a different 

section of the D.C. Code that provides, in relevant part: “No 

reduction shall be made to the pay of a reemployed individual 

for any retirement benefits received by the reemployed 

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individual pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 8331 . . . .” D.C. CODE 

§ 1-611.03(b). 

It is true that, as a result of these amendments, retirees 

from District employment who receive pension benefits 

pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 8331, the Civil Service Retirement Act

(CSRA), may continue to receive benefits while retaining their 

full salary if they are rehired by the District. But this does not 

help these plaintiffs, because they do not receive pension 

benefits under 5 U.S.C. § 8331. The Retirement Plan is 

separate from the CSRA. “The [CSRA] codified at 5 U.S.C. §§ 

8331 et seq., provides for payment of annuities to retired 

federal employees and their surviving spouses.” Fornaro v. 

James, 416 F.3d 63, 64 (D.C. Cir. 2005). In the past, when the 

“District personnel apparatus” was “awkwardly 

meshed . . . with the federal personnel system,” District of 

Columbia v. Thompson, 593 A.2d 621, 632 (D.C. 1991)

(internal quotation marks omitted), some District employees 

participated in the federal pension program established under 

the CSRA. 51 D.C. Reg. 8779 (Sept. 10, 2004). The 

Retirement Plan, by contrast, originated in a wholly different 

statute, the “stated purpose” of which was “to provide benefits 

comparable to those given under the” CSRA. Ridge v. Police 

& Firefighters Ret. & Relief Bd., 511 A.2d 418, 427 (D.C. 

1986) (emphasis added).

The plaintiffs have no entitlement to both full salary and

their annuities. Lacking such an entitlement, their due process 

and takings claims fail. See Hettinga v. United States, 677 F.3d 

471, 479-80 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (holding that 

plaintiffs must plead a “threshold requirement” of due process 

claims: “that the government has interfered with a cognizable 

liberty or property interest”); see also Kentucky Dep’t of Corr. 

v. Thompson, 490 U.S. 454, 460 (1989) (“[A]n individual 

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claiming a protected interest must have a legitimate claim of 

entitlement to it.”).

B

Around the same time that the District reduced the

plaintiffs’ salaries, the plaintiffs allege that the MPD gave large 

raises to senior officers who, like the plaintiffs, were retirees 

who had been rehired by the District and collected both salaries 

and Retirement Plan annuities. Although the officers were 

subject to the salary offset, the raises meant that their incomes 

remained roughly what they had been before the offset. 

The plaintiffs argue that exposing them to the full force of 

the offset while shielding others from its impact violated their 

right to equal protection of the laws. “To prevail on an equal 

protection claim, the plaintiff must show that the government 

has treated it differently from a similarly situated party and that 

the government’s explanation for the differing treatment does 

not satisfy the relevant level of scrutiny.” Muwekma Ohlone 

Tribe v. Salazar, 708 F.3d 209, 215 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Because plaintiffs do not allege that 

the pay raises “target[ed] a suspect class or burden[ed] a 

fundamental right,” we apply rational basis review. Id. The 

District’s challenged action “must be upheld against [an] equal 

protection challenge if there is any reasonably conceivable 

state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the 

classification,” and the plaintiffs bear the burden of showing 

that the pay raises were “not a rational means of advancing a 

legitimate government purpose.” Hettinga, 677 F.3d at 478-79 

(citation omitted).

We affirm the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ 

equal protection claim. As the district court observed, their

claim boils down to “the fact that the District gave raises to 

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some District employees, but not to them.” Cannon, 873 

F. Supp. 2d at 283. Before the district court, the plaintiffs 

essentially conceded that there are two ways in which they are 

not similarly situated to the officers who received pay raises. 

The plaintiffs work for Protective Services and not the MPD,

and they do not “perform the same functions, have the same 

duties and responsibilities, or the same background or 

experience, as these MPD employees.” Pls. April 3, 2012 Opp.

to Summ. J. (April 3, 2012), at 18-19.

In any event, the plaintiffs cannot show that it was 

arbitrary and irrational for the District to give raises to the 

senior MPD officers. As the District asserts, “[g]iven their 

differing responsibilities, the District may have a greater need 

and/or desire to re-hire and retain experienced officers for the 

MPD than it does for [Protective Services] and, therefore, may 

offer salary increases to attract and retain the former and not 

the latter.” Appellee’s Br. at 36. In other words, the District 

may have had greater use for the senior officers’ services and a 

greater fear of losing them. That plausible explanation for the 

raises is more than sufficient to survive rational basis review.

C

The plaintiffs claim that the District took two retaliatory 

actions against the exercise of their First Amendment right to 

bring this suit. The District fired plaintiff Louis Cannon, then 

chief of Protective Services, on February 8, 2012. Two days 

later, the plaintiffs did not receive their pay as expected 

through direct deposit. The District issued them paper 

paychecks instead.

As to the paycheck claim, the district court concluded that 

“receiving a single paycheck in the form of a paper check, 

rather than by direct deposit,” would not be sufficient to “deter 

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a person of ordinary firmness” from exercising First 

Amendment rights. Cannon, 873 F. Supp. 2d at 286-87 

(quoting Toolasprashad v. Bureau of Prisons, 286 F.3d 576, 

585 (D.C. Cir. 2002)). On appeal, the plaintiffs do not contest 

this conclusion. They argue instead that summary judgment 

was improper because a jury should have determined the 

District’s intent in issuing the paper paychecks. But the 

question of retaliatory intent was rendered irrelevant by the 

court’s holding that the District’s use of a paper paycheck in 

the place of direct deposit would not deter the exercise of First 

Amendment rights. The plaintiffs’ challenge fails.

As to Cannon’s firing, the District produced documentary 

evidence and an affidavit demonstrating that the director of the 

Department of Human Resources approved the firing on 

January 18, 2012, before the plaintiffs filed suit and for 

unrelated reasons. The district court therefore held that the 

plaintiffs could not establish that the lawsuit “was a substantial 

or motivating factor” in Cannon’s firing. Id. at 285 (quoting

Wilburn v. Robinson, 480 F.3d 1140, 1149 (D.C. Cir. 2007)). 

The plaintiffs claim they needed additional discovery to 

demonstrate that the District’s documentary evidence about 

Cannon’s firing was fraudulent. They contend that the district 

court abused its discretion by failing to stay its summary 

judgment while the plaintiffs pursued that theory. See FED. R. 

CIV. P. 56(d) (“If a nonmovant shows by affidavit or 

declaration that, for specified reasons, it cannot present facts 

essential to justify its opposition, the court may: (1) defer 

considering the motion or deny it; [or] (2) allow time to obtain 

affidavits or declarations or to take discovery . . . .”).

The plaintiffs, however, failed to comply with the 

requirements of Rule 56(d). “To obtain [Rule 56(d)] relief, the 

movant must submit an affidavit which states with sufficient 

particularity why additional discovery is necessary.” 

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Convertino v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 684 F.3d 93, 99 (D.C. Cir. 

2012) (citation omitted). 

The affidavit must satisfy three criteria. First, it must 

outline the particular facts [the movant] intends to 

discover and describe why those facts are necessary to 

the litigation. Second, it must explain why [the movant] 

could not produce the facts in opposition to the motion 

for summary judgment. Third, it must show the 

information is in fact discoverable.

Id. at 99-100 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 

The plaintiffs submitted no Rule 56(d) affidavit, nor did they 

make any of the required representations discussed in 

Convertino. The district court did not abuse its discretion in 

deciding the District’s summary judgment motion on the 

record before it.

IV

We affirm the district court’s judgment on the 

constitutional claims, but reverse and remand as to the claim

under the FLSA. Because the district court’s decision not to 

exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ D.C. law 

claims was premised on the dismissal of all federal claims from 

this case, see Cannon, 873 F. Supp. 2d at 287-88, we vacate 

that part of the district court’s order dismissing the D.C. law 

claims and remand for further proceedings.

So ordered.

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