Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 669

529US2

Unit: $U53

[09-26-01 10:37:28] PAGES PGT: OPIN

594

CHRISTENSEN v. HARRIS COUNTY

Stevens, J., dissenting

ability and the use of comp time must be contained within
an agreement. The “thing to be done” under the Act is for
the parties to come to terms.
It is because they have not
done so with respect to the use of comp time here that the
county may not unilaterally force its expenditure.

The Court is thus likewise mistaken in its insistence that
under petitioners’ reading, the comp time exception “would
become a nullity” because employees could “forc[e] employ-
ers to pay cash compensation instead of providing compensa-
tory time” for overtime work. Ante, at 585. Quite the con-
trary, employers can only be “forced” either to abide by the
arrangements to which they have agreed, or to comply with
the basic statutory requirement that overtime compensation
is payable in cash.

Moreover, as the Court points out, ante, at 580, 584, even
absent an agreement on the way in which comp time may be
used, employers may at any time require employees to “cash
out” of accumulated comp time, thereby readily avoiding
any forced payment of comp time employees may accrue.
§ 207(o)(3)(B); 29 CFR § 553.26(a) (1999). Neither can it be
said that Congress somehow assumed that the right to force
employees to use accumulated comp time was to be an im-
plied term in all comp time agreements. Congress speciﬁ-
cally contemplated that employees might well reach the stat-
in
utory maximum of accrued comp time, by requiring,
§ 207(o)(3)(A), that once the statutory maximum is reached,
employers must compensate employees in the preferred
form—cash—for every hour over the limit.

Finally, it is not without signiﬁcance in the present case
that the Government department responsible for the stat-
ute’s enforcement shares my understanding of its meaning.
Indeed, the Department of Labor made its position clear to
the county itself in response to a direct question posed by
the county before it decided—agency advice notwithstand-
ing—to implement its forced-use policy nonetheless. The
Department of Labor explained: