Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 651.0

529US2

Unit: $U53

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OCTOBER TERM, 1999

Syllabus

CHRISTENSEN et al. v. HARRIS COUNTY et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the fifth circuit

No. 98–1167. Argued February 23, 2000—Decided May 1, 2000

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U. S. C. § 201(o), permits
States and their political subdivisions to compensate their employees
for overtime work by granting them compensatory time in lieu of cash
If the employees do not use their accumulated compensatory
payment.
time, the employer must pay cash compensation under certain circum-
stances.
§§ 207(o)(3)–(4). Fearing the consequences of having to pay
for accrued compensatory time, Harris County adopted a policy requir-
ing its employees to schedule time off in order to reduce the amount of
accrued time. Petitioners, county deputy sheriffs, sued, claiming that
the FLSA does not permit an employer to compel an employee to use
compensatory time in the absence of an agreement permitting the em-
ployer to do so. The District Court granted petitioners summary judg-
ment and entered a declaratory judgment that the policy violated the
FLSA. The Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the FLSA did not
speak to the issue and thus did not prohibit the county from implement-
ing its policy.

Held: Nothing in the FLSA or its implementing regulations prohibits a
public employer from compelling the use of compensatory time. Peti-
tioners’ claim that § 207(o)(5) implicitly prohibits compelled use of com-
pensatory time in the absence of an agreement is unpersuasive. The
proposition that when a statute limits a thing to be done in a particular
mode, it includes a negative of any other mode, Raleigh & Gaston R.
Co. v. Reid, 13 Wall. 269, 270, does not resolve this case in petitioners’
favor. Section 207(o)(5) provides that an employee who requests to use
compensatory time must be permitted to do so unless the employer’s
operations would be unduly disrupted. The negative inference to be
drawn is only that an employer may not deny a request for a reason
other than that provided in § 207(o)(5). Section 207(o)(5) simply en-
sures that an employee receive some timely beneﬁt for overtime work.
The FLSA’s nearby provisions reﬂect a similar concern. At bottom,
the best reading of the FLSA is that it ensures liquidation of compensa-
tory time; it says nothing about restricting an employer’s efforts to re-
quire employees to use the time. Because the statute is silent on this
issue and because the county’s policy is entirely compatible with
§ 207(o)(5), petitioners cannot, as § 216(b) requires, prove that the county