Source: https://flsaovertimelaw.com/tag/liquidated-damages/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 00:47:10+00:00

Document:
Mumby v. Pure Energy Services (USA), Inc.
Following an award of summary judgment to the plaintiffs, which held that defendant’s violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was willful, for both liquidated damages and statute of limitations purposes, the defendant appealed. The crux of defendant’s argument on appeal was that, due to partial reliance on attorney advice, it was entitled to reject portions of the attorney’s advice that were not relevant to its inquiry of the attorney, without a finding that its FLSA violations were willful. The lower court disagreed and granted plaintiffs summary judgment, holding that a three (3), rather than two (2) year statute of limitations was applicable, due to defendant’s willful violation of the FLSA. The Tenth Circuit agreed and affirmed.
“In 2005, after one year of U.S. operations, Pure Energy began transferring management of its U.S. operations from Canada to the United States. When it transferred payroll functions to its new domestic management team, it hired a new manager, Cindy Rucker, to run payroll operations in compliance with U.S. labor standards. At the time of her hiring, Ms. Rucker was aware of the FLSA, but she was unfamiliar with day rates. When she expressed concerns about the company’s compensation policy, Pure Energy’s management referred Ms. Rucker to a Colorado attorney, Paul Hurcomb.
In January 2006, after speaking with Ms. Rucker and reviewing some of Pure Energy’s employment offer letters, Mr. Hurcomb advised Ms. Rucker that Pure Energy’s day rate policy complied with the FLSA so long as the company itemized regular and overtime rates and did not have its field employees work more than twelve hours per day. Mr. Hurcomb also discussed with Ms. Rucker that any weekly hours over forty had to be paid as overtime, regardless of the day rate. Mr. Hurcomb did not perform any legal research regarding day rates or the FLSA. Although he essentially stated the forty-hour overtime requirement correctly, his other advice was incorrect.
In sum, Mr. Hurcomb and Ms. Rucker discussed day rates, but they also discussed the weekly overtime requirement for employees working more than forty hours per week. Mr. Hurcomb further advised-and Ms. Rucker communicated to her counterparts within the company-that employees must not work more than twelve hours per day. Yet, Pure Energy made no real changes to its compensation policy, nor did it investigate whether its employees were working shifts longer than twelve hours. Indeed, without tracking the number of hours worked by each field employee, it was virtually impossible for Pure Energy to determine whether it was complying with Mr. Hurcomb’s advice, let alone the requirements imposed under the FLSA. It is of no consequence that Mr. Hurcomb’s advice proved incorrect. Pure Energy did not rely in good faith on its counsel’s advice, and thus cannot raise an advice-of-counsel defense.
Pure Energy argues that its purpose in seeking Mr. Hurcomb’s advice was to determine the legality of its day rate policy, and with respect to this narrow issue it acted in good faith on Mr. Hurcomb’s advice. However, an employer may not selectively listen to and then, in good faith, rely upon only one of many issues discussed simply because it sought discrete legal advice on one potential FLSA violation and viewed all other advice as irrelevant to its original, limited inquiry.
In this case, it does not matter if Ms. Rucker’s intent was only to narrowly inquire about Pure Energy’s compliance with the FLSA’s day rate requirements and not to inquire about the FLSA’s weekly overtime requirement. The discussion between Mr. Hurcomb and Ms. Rucker essentially put Pure Energy on notice that it must pay weekly overtime for each hour over forty.
Gonzalez v. Bustleton Services, Inc.
This case was before the Court on Plaintiffs’ Motion for an Award of Prejudgment Interest, subsequent to the Court’s holding that Defendant had violated the FLSA. In its Order regarding liability, the Court awarded liquidated damages as to one aspect of Plaintiffs’ claim and denied liquidated damages as to a second component. The Plaintiffs’ Motion sought prejudgment interest solely on the unpaid wages that the Court had not awarded liquidated damages upon. The Court held that Plaintiffs were entitled to prejudgment interest on the unpaid wages for which they were not awarded liquidated damages.
“In response to Plaintiffs’ motion for prejudgment interest, Defendant first argues that Plaintiffs are not entitled to prejudgment interest because they have already received liquidated damages. It is well-settled in FLSA jurisprudence that a plaintiff cannot recover both liquidated damages and prejudgment interest because both serve the same purpose, namely to compensate employees for losses caused by delayed receipt of wages they are due. See Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 715, 65 S.Ct. 895, 89 L.Ed. 1296 (1945) (recovery of liquidated damages and prejudgment interest is “double compensation for damages arising from delay in the payment of the basic minimum wages”); see also Martin v. Cooper Elec. Supply Co., 940 F.2d 896, 910 (3d Cir.1991) (describing similar purpose of liquidated damages and prejudgment interest); Starceski v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 54 F.3d 1089, 1102 (3d Cir.1995) (contrasting punitive nature of liquidated damages in ADEA case with non-punitive liquidated damages in FLSA case). Thus, there is no dispute that the court cannot award prejudgment interest on wages for which liquidated damages have been awarded.
Defendant takes the argument a step further and asserts that any award of liquidated damages prohibits any award of prejudgment interest, I disagree. The cases upon which Defendant relies merely stand for the proposition that the court cannot award both liquidated damages and prejudgment interest on the same unpaid wages. See Bowers v. Foto-Wear, Inc., No. 03-1137, 2007 WL 4086339, at *6 (M.D.Pa. Nov.15, 2007) (declining to award prejudgment interest where court awarded liquidated damages on all unpaid wages); Friedrich, 1995 WL 412385, at *4 (awarding prejudgment interest when liquidated damages were denied); Signora v. Liberty Travel, Inc., 886 A.2d 284, 286-87 (Pa.Super.2005) (finding award of liquidated damages would be duplicative where prejudgment interest was granted on same award of unpaid wages).
As previously discussed, the purpose of prejudgment interest is to compensate the plaintiff for losses resulting from the delayed payment of wages. See Brooklyn, 324 U.S. at 715; Martin, 940 F.2d at 910. Here, Plaintiffs received an award of liquidated damages under the FLSA for two years of unpaid wages owed for the credited overtime for which they had not been properly compensated. They have not received any compensation for the delayed payment of the third year of credited overtime or any of the uncompensated morning and evening time. The equities favor an award of prejudgment interest for these unpaid wages. See Brock v. Richardson, 812 F.2d 121, 127 (3d Cir.1987) (explaining the “usual equities favor” award of prejudgment interest in FLSA case).
Defendant also argues that the court’s denial of liquidated damages for the uncompensated morning and evening time under the FLSA precludes an award of prejudgment interest. See Def.’s Memo. at 4. This is incorrect. Although liquidated damages and prejudgment interest both seek to compensate the plaintiff for the delay in receiving his wages in the FLSA context, the denial of liquidated damages does not dictate the denial of prejudgment interest. In fact, in some of the cases cited by Defendant, the court awarded prejudgment interest while denying liquidated damages. See, e.g., Frie drich. In order to avoid liquidated damages, the burden is on the defendant to show that it was acting in good faith and “had reasonable grounds for believing that his act or omission was not a violation of the [FLSA].” 29 U.S.C. § 260. With respect to prejudgment interest, the Third Circuit has said that prejudgment interest is presumed unless the “usual equities in favor of such interest are not applicable.” Pignataro, 593 F.3d at 273 (citing Brock, 812 F.2d at 126). Here, although I find that Defendant had a reasonable basis for failing to compensate Plaintiffs for the morning and evening time, this does not change the fact that Plaintiffs were denied wages they were owed. The purpose of prejudgment interest is served by such an award in this case.
Defendant also seems to argue that because the court did not award liquidated damages on the additional year of credited overtime damages provided by PMWA, Plaintiffs’ are not entitled to now seek prejudgment interest on these additional unpaid wages because it gives Plaintiffs “a second bite at the apple.” See Def.’s Memo. at 9. The main problem with Defendant’s argument is that PMWA does not provide for liquidated damages and caselaw has not extended this remedy to PMWA cases. See 43 P.S. § 333.113 (damages available as civil remedy do not include liquidated damages). Accordingly, Plaintiffs properly did not seek liquidated damages under PMWA, see Pls.’ Proposed Findings and Conclusions at ¶ 96 n. 14, and the court did not award them. There is no bar to Plaintiffs’ request for prejudgment interest.
Next, Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s failure to request prejudgment interest prior to the filing of the current motion precludes such recovery. See Def.’s Memo. at 8. I disagree. In their Complaint, Plaintiffs seek “[c]ompensatory and back pay damages to the fullest extent permitted under federal and state law.” Compl. at Prayer for Relief. At the final pretrial conference, counsel agreed that submissions concerning the calculation of damages would follow the court’s findings and conclusions. In their Proposed Findings and Conclusions, Plaintiffs specifically reference prejudgment interest as an alternative to liquidated damages. See Pls.’ Proposed Findings and Conclusions at ¶ 99 n. 15. I also note that Defendant has suffered no prejudice based on the Plaintiffs’ request for prejudgment interest at this time.
In addition, Defendant argues that the court should decline to award prejudgment interest on the uncompensated morning and evening time because this is not an easily calculable fixed sum, particularly because “it was the Plaintiffs’ lack of credibility which led to the uncertainty.” Def.’s Memo. at 10. Defendant relies on Pennsylvania easel aw which states that interest is due “[w]henever a fixed sum of money is wrongfully withheld from a party to whom it is properly due.” Id. at 9 (quoting Friedrich, 1995 WL 412385, at *3). Here, Defendant argues that the calculation of prejudgment interest is made uncertain by Plaintiffs’ lack of credibility, itself. Thus, the award of prejudgment interest would be inequitable.
At trial, Plaintiffs testified that they arrived at the shop before work and performed work prior to leaving for the jobsite every workday. Defendant presented credible evidence that Plaintiffs left from the shop only 35% of the time and went directly to the jobsite from their homes 65% of the time. In fact, Defendant presented evidence identifying specific jobs for which Plaintiffs traveled directly to the jobsite. Therefore, I found that Plaintiffs were entitled to 35% of the total uncompensated morning and evening time. Although I agree that Plaintiffs are partially to blame for any uncertainty in the calculation of prejudgment interest, Defendant lost the Plaintiffs’ timesheets, see N.T. 10/13/09 at 87-88, and thereby contributed to the uncertainty.

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