Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 659

529US2

Unit: $U53

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

584

CHRISTENSEN v. HARRIS COUNTY

Opinion of the Court

ployee will receive timely compensation for working over-
time. Section 207(o)(5) guarantees that, at the very mini-
mum, an employee will get to use his compensatory time
(i. e., take time off work with full pay) unless doing so would
disrupt the employer’s operations. And it is precisely this
concern over ensuring that employees can timely “liquidate”
compensatory time that the Secretary of Labor identiﬁed in
her own regulations governing § 207(o)(5):

“Compensatory time cannot be used as a means to
avoid statutory overtime compensation. An employee
has the right to use compensatory time earned and must
not be coerced to accept more compensatory time than
an employer can realistically and in good faith expect to
be able to grant within a reasonable period of his or
her making a request for use of such time.”
29 CFR
§ 553.25(b) (1999).

This reading is conﬁrmed by nearby provisions of the
FLSA that reﬂect a similar concern for ensuring that the
employee receive some timely beneﬁt for overtime work.
For example, § 207(o)(3)(A) provides that workers may not
accrue more than 240 or 480 hours of compensatory time, de-
pending upon the nature of the job. See also § 207(o)(2)(B)
(conditioning the employer’s ability to provide compensatory
time upon the employee not accruing compensatory time in
excess of the § 207(o)(3)(A) limits). Section 207(o)(3)(A) helps
guarantee that employees only accrue amounts of compensa-
tory time that they can reasonably use. After all, an em-
ployer does not need § 207(o)(3)(A)’s protection; it is free
at any time to reduce the number of hours accrued by ex-
changing them for cash payment, § 207(o)(3)(B), or by halt-
ing the accrual of compensatory time by paying cash compen-
sation for overtime work, 29 CFR § 553.26(a) (1999). Thus,
§ 207(o)(3)(A),
like § 207(o)(5), reﬂects a concern that em-
ployees receive some timely beneﬁt in exchange for over-
time work. Moreover, on petitioners’ view, the compensa-