Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-15-01049/USCOURTS-ca10-15-01049-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
William Evans
Appellant
Loveland Automotive Investments, Inc.
Appellee
John Richard Pipe
Appellee
Pipeline Auto Transport, Inc.
Appellee
Jeffrey Thayer
Not Party

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

WILLIAM EVANS, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

and 

JEFFREY THAYER, 

 Plaintiff, 

v. 

LOVELAND AUTOMOTIVE 

INVESTMENTS, INC.; JOHN RICHARD 

PIPE, d/b/a Loveland Auto Transport; 

PIPELINE AUTO TRANSPORT, INC., 

 Defendants - Appellees. 

No. 15-1049 

(D.C. No. 1:13-CV-02415-WJM-KMT) 

(D. Colo.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before TYMKOVICH, Chief Judge, HOLMES and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Appellant William Evans appeals from one ruling in a judgment generally 

granted in his favor—the denial of an award of liquidated damages under the Fair 

 *

 After examining plaintiff-appellant’s brief and the appellate record, this 

panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in 

the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). 

The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and 

judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res 

judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value 

consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit 

December 10, 2015

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

Appellate Case: 15-1049 Document: 01019537282 Date Filed: 12/10/2015 Page: 1 
2 

Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219. Exercising jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1291, we agree with Mr. Evans that the district court was not precluded 

from awarding liquidated damages, and we remand the case for reconsideration in 

accordance with this order. 

 Mr. Evans worked as a truck driver for the defendants. After the defendants 

failed to timely pay him wages, he sued under FLSA and the Colorado Wage Claim 

Act (“CWCA”), Colo. Rev. Stat. §§ 8-4-101 to -123.1

 Mr. Evans properly served the 

defendants with his complaint, but the defendants failed to file a responsive pleading 

by the applicable deadline or otherwise respond to the complaint. After default was 

entered against the defendants, they moved to set aside the entry of default. 

Although the court initially set aside entry of default as to one of them, it later 

granted Mr. Evans’s subsequent motion for entry of default judgment as to all of 

them. Oddly, Mr. Evans next moved for summary judgment, rather than default 

judgment. 

 The district court treated Mr. Evans’s motion for summary judgment as an 

application for default judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 55(b)(2) and entered a final 

default judgment. In doing so, the court concluded that Mr. Evans was entitled to 

judgment in his favor on both his FLSA and CWCA claims. Aplt. App. at 15; 

see Redmond v. Chains, Inc., 996 P.2d 759, 764 (Colo. App. 2000) (holding that 

 1

 Mr. Evans’s co-plaintiff has not appealed, so this order and judgment 

addresses only Mr. Evans’s claims. 

Appellate Case: 15-1049 Document: 01019537282 Date Filed: 12/10/2015 Page: 2 
3 

because FLSA does not preempt CWCA, a plaintiff “is entitled to assert claims for 

relief under both statutes”). 

The court then stated that “these claims give rise to similar and, at least 

partially, overlapping damages.” Aplt. App. at 15. The court cited Mason v. 

Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, 115 F.3d 1442, 1459 (10th Cir. 1997) (quoting U.S. 

Indus., Inc. v. Touche Ross & Co., 854 F.2d 1223, 1259 (10th Cir. 1988)), overruled 

on other grounds by TW Telecom Holdings Inc. v. Carolina Internet Ltd., 661 F.3d 

495 (10th Cir. 2011), for the principle that “‘[i]f a federal claim and a state claim 

arise from the same operative facts, and seek identical relief, an award of damages 

under both theories will constitute double recovery.’” Then without evaluating the 

nature of relief available under FLSA and CWCA, the court further concluded that 

Mr. Evans could “recover damages only on the statute which provides the greatest 

relief.” Aplt. App. at 15. 

Without explaining why it believed CWCA provided greater relief than FLSA, 

the district court awarded Mr. Evans $7,248.75 in compensatory damages for unpaid 

wages under CWCA. Further, after finding that Mr. Evans had made a proper, 

written demand for payment under CWCA and that the defendants had willfully 

failed to pay the owed wages, the district court also awarded Mr. Evans a penalty 

under CWCA of 175% of the unpaid wages: $12,685.31. See Colo. Rev. Stat. 

§ 8-4-109(3). Although noting that Mr. Evans had provided no support for his 

prejudgment-interest claim, the court nevertheless exercised its discretion and 

awarded prejudgment interest—solely on the compensatory damages—in the amount 

Appellate Case: 15-1049 Document: 01019537282 Date Filed: 12/10/2015 Page: 3 
4 

of $1077.18, together with postjudgment interest. In addition, it ruled that Mr. Evans 

was entitled to his attorney fees and costs. 

 On appeal, Mr. Evans contends that he is entitled to FLSA liquidated damages 

in addition to the CWCA penalty because the two monetary awards serve different 

purposes. More specifically, he contends that FLSA liquidated damages are meant to 

compensate employees wrongly unpaid their wages, but that the CWCA penalty is 

meant to punish employers that wrongly fail to pay their employees’ earned wages. 

We agree with Mr. Evans’s position. 

 We review de novo a district court’s conclusions of law, including matters of 

statutory interpretation and legal analysis underlying a district court’s award of 

damages. O’Neal v. Ferguson Constr. Co., 237 F.3d 1248, 1257 (10th Cir. 2001). 

 In addition to requiring employers to pay wages owed, FLSA authorizes the 

imposition of an equal amount as liquidated damages unless “the employer shows 

both that he acted in good faith and that he had reasonable grounds for believing that 

his actions did not violate the Act.” Doty v. Elias, 733 F.2d 720, 725-26 (10th Cir. 

1984); see also 29 U.S.C. §§ 216(b), 260. Liquidated damages awarded under FLSA 

are compensatory rather than punitive. Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 

707 (1945). In other words, they “‘are not a penalty exacted by the law, but rather 

compensation to the employee occasioned by the delay in receiving wages due 

caused by the employer’s violation of the FLSA.’” Jordan v. U.S. Postal Serv., 

379 F.3d 1196, 1202 (10th Cir. 2004) (quoting Herman v. RSR Sec. Servs. Ltd., 

172 F.3d 132, 142 (2d Cir. 1999)); see also Renfro v. City of Emporia, 948 F.2d 

Appellate Case: 15-1049 Document: 01019537282 Date Filed: 12/10/2015 Page: 4 
5 

1529, 1540 (10th Cir. 1991) (“The purpose for the award of liquidated damages is 

‘the reality that the retention of a workman’s pay may well result in damages too 

obscure and difficult of proof for estimate other than by liquidated damages.’” 

(quoting Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 567 F.2d 429, 463 (D.C. Cir. 1976))). 

 The relief available under FLSA and CWCA does partially overlap because 

both laws allow employees to recover unpaid wages as compensatory damages. And 

Mr. Evans concedes that he can recover his unpaid wages only once. But, as 

discussed above, FLSA allows for additional compensatory damages as liquidated 

damages. In contrast, CWCA imposes a penalty on an employer who receives an 

employee’s written demand for payment and fails to make payment within fourteen 

days, and it increases the penalty if the employer’s failure to pay is willful. 

See Graham v. Zurich Am. Ins. Co., 296 P.3d 347, 349-50 (Colo. App. 2012). No 

Tenth Circuit case directly addresses whether these damages duplicate one another. 

Other jurisdictions have concluded that an award of both a state statutory 

penalty and FLSA liquidated damages does not constitute a double recovery. 

See, e.g., Mathis v. Housing Auth., 242 F. Supp. 2d 777, 790 (D. Or. 2002) (“[A]n 

award of the penalty under [the state law] and an award of liquidated damages under 

the FLSA do not constitute a double recovery.”); Morales v. Cancun Charlie’s Rest., 

No. 3:07-cv-1836 (CFD), 2010 WL 7865081, at *9 (D. Conn. Nov. 23, 2010) 

(unpublished) (allowing recovery of liquidated damages under both FLSA and state 

law because the provisions “serve different purposes—the FLSA damages are 

compensatory and the [state law] damages serve a punitive purpose”); Do Yea Kim v. 

Appellate Case: 15-1049 Document: 01019537282 Date Filed: 12/10/2015 Page: 5 
6 

167 Nail Plaza, No. 05 CV 8560 (GBD), 2008 WL 2676598, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. July 7, 

2008) (unpublished) (“New York Labor Law provides separately for liquidated 

damages in overtime compensation claims, in addition to federal liquidated 

damages.”). We agree with the rationale of these cases. 

We note further that, like FLSA liquidated damages, prejudgment interest also 

is meant “‘to compensate the wronged party for being deprived of the monetary value 

of his loss from the time of the loss to the payment of the judgment.’” Greene v. 

Safeway Stores, Inc., 210 F.3d 1237, 1247 (10th Cir. 2000) (quoting Suiter v. 

Mitchell Motor Coach Sales, Inc., 151 F.3d 1275, 1288 (10th Cir. 1998)). It follows 

that “a party may not recover both liquidated damages and prejudgment interest 

under the FLSA.” Doty, 733 F.2d at 726. Thus, on remand, if the district court 

awards FLSA liquidated damages it must vacate its award of prejudgment interest. 

See Dep’t of Labor v. City of Sapulpa, 30 F.3d 1285, 1290 (10th Cir. 1994) (“If the 

district court finds that liquidated damages should be awarded it must vacate its 

award of prejudgment interest, because it is settled that such interest may not be 

awarded in addition to liquidated damages.”). 

Therefore, we remand to the district court to recalculate the amount of 

damages in light of our determination that it is permissible for the court to award 

 

Appellate Case: 15-1049 Document: 01019537282 Date Filed: 12/10/2015 Page: 6 
7 

both FLSA liquidated damages and a CWCA penalty. If the court awards FLSA 

liquidated damages, it must vacate the award of prejudgment interest. 

Entered for the Court 

Gregory A. Phillips 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 15-1049 Document: 01019537282 Date Filed: 12/10/2015 Page: 7