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CHRISTENSEN v. HARRIS COUNTY

Opinion of the Court

The FLSA expressly regulates some aspects of accrual
and preservation of compensatory time. For example, the
FLSA provides that an employer must honor an employee’s
request to use compensatory time within a “reasonable pe-
riod” of time following the request, so long as the use of the
compensatory time would not “unduly disrupt” the employ-
er’s operations.
§ 207(o)(5); 29 CFR § 553.25 (1999). The
FLSA also caps the number of compensatory time hours that
an employee may accrue. After an employee reaches that
maximum, the employer must pay cash compensation for ad-
ditional overtime hours worked.
In addi-
tion, the FLSA permits the employer at any time to cancel
or “cash out” accrued compensatory time hours by paying
the employee cash compensation for unused compensatory
time.
§ 207(o)(3)(B); 29 CFR § 553.26(a) (1999). And the
FLSA entitles the employee to cash payment for any accrued
compensatory time remaining upon the termination of em-
ployment.

§ 207(o)(3)(A).

§ 207(o)(4).

B

Petitioners are 127 deputy sheriffs employed by respond-
ents Harris County, Texas, and its sheriff, Tommy B. Thomas
(collectively, Harris County).
It is undisputed that each of
the petitioners individually agreed to accept compensatory
time, in lieu of cash, as compensation for overtime.

As petitioners accumulated compensatory time, Harris
County became concerned that it lacked the resources to pay
monetary compensation to employees who worked overtime
after reaching the statutory cap on compensatory time ac-
crual and to employees who left their jobs with sizable re-
serves of accrued time. As a result, the county began look-
ing for a way to reduce accumulated compensatory time.
It
wrote to the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and
Hour Division, asking “whether the Sheriff may schedule
non-exempt employees to use or take compensatory time.”
Brief for Petitioners 18–19. The Acting Administrator of
the Division replied: