Source: http://openjurist.org/190/f3d/753
Timestamp: 2013-05-23 21:46:25
Document Index: 431526389

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 521', '§254', '§ 254', '§785', '§ 254', '§ 553', '§ 553', '§213', '§541', '§541', '§553', '§553', '§ 207']

190 F. 3d 753 - William Russell Aiken, et al. v. City of Memphis, Tennessee	Home190 f3d 753 william russell aiken, et al. v. city of memphis, tennessee
"The Portal-to-Portal Act, which amended the FLSA in 1947, 29 U.S.C. § 521 et seq., represented an attempt by Congress to delineate certain activities which did not constitute work," and which are therefore non-compensable. See Reich v. New York City Transit Auth., 45 F.3d 646, 649 (2nd Cir. 1995). "[W]alking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity or activities which such employee is employed to perform" is one example of a non-compensable activity. 29 U.S.C. §254(a)(1). Similarly, employees are not entitled to compensation under the Act for "activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said principal activity or activities, which occur either prior to the time on any particular workday at which such employee commences, or subsequent to the time on any particular workday at which he ceases, such principal activity." 29 U.S.C. § 254(a)(2). The effect of these sections is to make ordinary commute time non-compensable under the FLSA.
Despite these provisions, an employee is entitled to payment for any work that the employer requires the employee to perform during the commute. See 29 C.F.R. §785.41. Several courts recently have addressed the issue of the compensability of canine care that occurs during commutes; the leading case is Reich. "Feeding, training, and walking [a police dog] are work" and are therefore compensable activities. Reich, 45 F.3d at 651. It follows, then, that to the extent that "[s]uch true dog-care work occurr[s] during the commute [it] is not exempted from compensation by the Portal-to-Portal Act." Id. at 652.
Plaintiffs, however, have not adduced evidence that canine officers spend more than a de minimis amount of time during their commutes engaged in such activities. See Reich, 45 F.3d at 652-53; see also Bobo v. United States, 136 F.3d 1465, 1468 (1st Cir. 1998); Andrews v. DuBois, 888 F. Supp. 213, 219 (D.Mass. 1995); Levering v. District of Columbia, 869 F. Supp. 24, 29-30 (D. D.C. 1994). "When the matter in issue concerns only a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled working hours, such trifles may be disregarded. Split-second absurdities are not justified by the actualities of working conditions or the Fair Labor Standards Act." See Anderson v. Mt. Clements Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 692 (1946); see also United States Dep't of Labor v. Cole Enterprises, Inc., 62 F.3d 775, 780 (6th Cir. 1995). Plaintiffs' affidavits demonstrate only that officers must "occasionally stop to feed the dog, let him out of the car or clean up after him while traveling to work." Although plaintiffs' affidavits also indicate that officers must "constantly" and "on a regular basis" discipline their dogs, such generalities do not create a question of fact. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986) (holding that a mere scintilla of evidence in support of the nonmoving party's position is insufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment). Even if we were inclined to conclude, which we are not, that this "evidence" indicates that, over the course of a commute, the seconds that it takes to discipline a dog -- even on a regular basis -- could add up to a significant amount of time, we are at a loss as to how Memphis could be expected to document such time. See Lindow v. United States, 738 F.2d 1057, 1062-63 (9th Cir. 1984) (setting forth factors relevant to the de minimis doctrine, including size of the aggregate claim and practical difficulty of recording the time).
III. C Vehicle Maintenance & Non-Canine Commute Time
The plaintiffs also contend that the district court erred by ruling in favor ofthe city with regard to other commuting issues. The city provides some officers vehicles for use in commuting to and from work. If an officer is assigned a take-home vehicle, the officer must schedule maintenance for the vehicle, must keep the vehicle's radio on during the commute, and must respond to disabled vehicles or crimes that the officer observes during the commute. Plaintiffs sought compensation for the time they spend cleaning and scheduling maintenance for their city vehicles, and for the time spent commuting to work in them.
29 U.S.C. § 254(a) (emphasis added). Plaintiffs do not argue that officers' use of police vehicles for commuting purposes takes officers outside of their normal commuting areas or that there is no agreement between the city and the officers' union covering these matters. Keeping vehicles clean and scheduling maintenance to be done at the city's expense are hardly arduous and precisely the sort of activities that Congress had in mind when it used the phrase "incidental to the use of [the employer's] vehicle." Id. The legislative history of the 1996 amendments is instructive: "It is not possible to define in all circumstances what specific tasks and activities would be considered 'incidental' to the use of an employer's vehicle for commuting. . . . [R]outine vehicle safety inspections or other minor tasks have long been considered preliminary or postliminary activities and are therefore not compensable." H.R. Rep. 104-585.
Plaintiffs are incorrect. As an initial matter, if an officer takes time out of his or her commute to respond to an incident, he or she is compensated if the response takes more than thirty minutes.3 Second, although the presence of marked police cars on the streets arguably deters crime, this is irrelevant for FLSA purposes. See Hellmers v. Vestal, 969 F. Supp. 837, 843 (N.D.N.Y 1997) ("Nowhere in the [FLSA] does there appear to be an exemption for commuting time spent in marked police cars."); H.R. Rep. 104-585 ("The fact that a vehicle may been modified for special purposes, displays company logos, or is specially equipped does not alter the nature of such travel."). Finally, the amount of work involved in monitoring a police radio during a commute is simply de minimis4. Again, the district court did not err.
III. D. Location-When-Ill Policy
The plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on the issue of whether the city's Location-When-Ill (LWI) policy, DR 1104, violates the FLSA. The department pays employees on leave for illness or an on-the-job injury at their normal hourly rate for their regular shifts. The department's LWI policy, however, regulates the activities of employees who are on leave. It provided, during the time period in question,5 that "[a] member reporting sick or injured shall be confined to his or her residence, clinic, or hospital, except to visit his or her personal physician or by permission of his or her supervisor."6 The policy thus placed no restrictions on an officer's activities while at home, but if an officer left home without permission, he or she was subject to discipline. The record indicates that the city enforced the policy with checks by supervisors every third day. The department made checks "at all hours." It conducted them by phone, but if there was no response, the city sent someone to the officer's residence.
Generally speaking, the FLSA requires employers to compensate an employee at a rate of pay not less than one and one-half times the employee's normal rate of pay for hours the employee works above the statute's applicable maximum workweek. See 29 U.S.C. §. 207(a). Under certain circumstances, employer restrictions on what is ostensibly an employee's free time can cause such time to count as hours worked. See 29 C.F.R. § 553.221(c), (d). The question confronting this Court is analogous to that posed by cases considering the compensability of "on-call" time.7 An employer must compensate an employee for time spent "predominantly for the employer's benefit." Martin v. Ohio Turnpike Comm'n, 968 F.2d 606, 609 (6th Cir. 1992) (citing Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 133 (1944)); see also 29 C.F.R. § 553.221(c), (d). In other words, the question in on-call cases is whether the employer's restrictions on officers' time "prevent the employees from effectively using the time for personal pursuits." Martin, 968 F.2d at 611. "That some of the plaintiffs' personal activities may have been affected is not enough." Id. In making this determination, the Court examines "all the circumstances of the case." Id. at 609 (internal quotes omitted). "[A]n employee's free time must be severely restricted for off-time to be construed as work time for purposes of the FLSA." See Dade County v. Alvarez, 124 F.3d 1380, 384 (11th Cir. 1997) (internal quotes omitted), cert denied, --- U.S.---, 118 S. Ct. 1804 (1998).
Using this fact-specific standard as a guide, it is clear that time Memphis officers spend subject to the city's LWI policy is not compensable work.8 At home, such officers are free to use their time as they please. Although they must receive permission before leaving home -- assuming of course that the officer is well enough to leave home -- there is no evidence in the record to indicate that Memphis ever, let alone routinely, denied permission. Thus, we conclude that Memphis's insignificant phone-in burden does not transform recovery time into work, as it is not "so onerous as to prevent employees from effectively using the time for personal pursuits." Martin, 968 F.2d at 611. Indeed, the relatively few cases that have held on-call time compensable involved a significantly greater intrusion on employees than exists in this case. See, e.g., Bright v. Houston Northwest Medical Center Survivor, Inc., 934 F.2d 671, 678-79 (5th Cir. 1991) (employee on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, must always be sober and within 20 minutes of work); Cross v. Arkansas Forestry Comm'n, 938 F.2d 912, 916-17 (8th Cir. 1991) (employees required to monitor noisy hand-held radio 24 hours per day, forcing them to concentrate on radio all day and preventing them from going anywhere noise would be unwelcome); see also Berry v. County of Sonoma, 30 F.3d 1174, 1183 (9th Cir. 1994) (listing as one of the "illustrative, non-exhaustive" list of factors that a court should consider in determining whether an employee is free to engage in personal activities "whether there were excessive geographical restrictions on employee's movements"). The district court was correct to dismiss this claim.
III. E. Exempt Status of Captains
Finally, plaintiffs contend that the district court erred by ruling in favor of the city on plaintiffs' claim regarding police captains. Memphis does not pay overtime to captains because it classifies them as salaried, executive employees. The FLSA does not require employers to provide overtime pay to "bona fide executives." 29 U.S.C. §213(a)(1). The regulations implementing the FLSA provide that for an employee to fall within this exemption, that employee must be paid on a "salary basis." 29 C.F.R. §541.1(f). An employee is so paid "if under his employment agreement he regularly receives each pay period on a weekly, or less frequent basis, a predetermined amount constituting all or part of his compensation, which amount is not subject to reduction because of variations in the quality or quantity of the work performed." 29 C.F.R. §541.118.
The plaintiffs contend that the police captains are not bona fide executives for the purposes of the FLSA because they were subject to pay reductions for disciplinary infractions relating to the "quality or quantity" of their work. The City of Memphis Civil Service Rules9 provide that if a Memphis employee commits a violation of the rules, the employee is subject to several disciplinary actions, including "unpaid suspension of a duration as short as one day." Although these rules theoretically apply to all Memphis employees, there is no rule that specifically provides that police captains are subject to suspensions. Only one captain -- not a plaintiff inthis case -- has ever been suspended without pay for disciplinary reasons.
In Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997), a case with facts virtually identical to those in the case before us, the Supreme Court considered whether "an employee's pay is 'subject to' disciplinary or other deductions whenever there exists a theoretical possibility of such deductions, or rather only when there is something more to suggest that the employee is actually vulnerable to having his pay reduced." Id. at 459. The Auer plaintiffs, several sergeants and a lieutenant, along with all other St. Louis police department employees, were nominally covered by a police manual that listed 58 possible rules violations and also listed several possible penalties associated with each, including, in some instances, deductions in pay. The Court held that the plaintiffs were nevertheless salaried employees under the salary-basis test. Deferring to the Secretary of Labor's interpretation of the FLSA, the Court wrote that employees are denied exempt status under the test only when "employees are covered by a policy that permits disciplinary or other deductions in pay 'as a practical matter.'" Id. at 461 (emphasis added). This is so when the employer has either 1) "an actual practice of making such deductions," or 2) "an employment policy that creates a significant likelihood of such deductions." Id. (internal quotations omitted). A "one-time deduction in a sergeant's pay, under unusual circumstances," was not sufficient to establish the former. Id. at 462. A manual that applied to all department employees, and thus that did not "effectively communicate that pay deductions are an anticipated form of punishment for employees in petitioners' category," did not establish the latter. Id. The Court concluded that its holding was the most sensible, since it "avoids the imposition of massive and unanticipated overtime liability (including the possibility of substantial liquidated damages) in situations in which a vague or broadly worded policy is nominally applicable to a whole range of employees but is not 'significantly likely' to be invoked against salaried employees." Id. at 461.
In this case, there is nothing to indicate that Memphis police captains are anything other than salaried employees.10 They may be theoretically subject to pay reductions, but as a "practical matter" they are not. The evidence shows that only one captain ever faced a deduction in pay. Thus, plaintiffs cannot demonstrate an actual practice of applying such deductions to captains. By plaintiffs' own admission, the Civil Service rules apply to all department employees. Thus, the policy does not effectively communicate that captains will be suspended in any specified circumstance. Again, we conclude that the district court did not err.
(1) As a condition for use of compensatory time in lieu of overtime payment in cash, section 7(o)(2)(A) of the Act requires an agreement or understanding reached prior to the performance of work. This can be accomplished pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement, a memorandum of understanding or any other agreement between the public agency and representatives of the employees....
(2) ....The agreement or understanding may include other provisions governing the preservation, use, or cashing out of compensatory time so long as these provisions are consistent with section 7(o) of the Act....
We acknowledge some difficulty reconciling 29 C.F.R. §553.25(c)(2) and 29 C.F.R. §553.25(d). The Seventh Circuit, however, has recently noted the importance of private ordering in FLSA cases, even in situations in which the FLSA has not granted parties the broad freedom to contract that it has here. See Dinges v. Sacred Heart St. Mary's Hospitals, Inc., 164 F.3d 1056, 1059 (7th Cir. 1999) ("[W]e must take account of the arrangement plaintiffs themselves chose. . . . Although the FLSA overrides contracts, in close cases it makes sense to let private arrangements endure -- for the less flexible statutory approach has the potential to make everyone worse off."). We agree.
The reason for this policy was, as the defendant puts it, to dissuade officers from "the inappropriate practice of using 'sick' days as additional vacation days."
RYAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part. In my view, neither the district court nor the majority here come squarely to grips with the plaintiffs' claim that they are, on some occasions, being denied compensatory time off for reasons forbidden under the Fair Labor Standards Act and its implementing regulations. The result, in my judgment, is that the plaintiffs continueto be denied relief to which they are entitled.
The parties agree that 29 U.S.C. § 207 (o)(5)(B) assures that, in this case, an officer shall be permitted by the employee's employer to use [comp] time within a reasonable period after making the request if the use of the compensatory time does not unduly disrupt the operations of the public agency.
The district court failed to come to grips with this argument, stating only that "the City could have allowed the officer the time off by paying another officer overtime compensation to work in the requesting officer's place [,but] [a]s general policy, the Division declined to call in officers on an overtime basis in order to permit another officer off for compensatory time." Aiken v. City of Memphis, 985 F. Supp. 740, 745 (W.D. Tenn. 1997). The district court then observed that a denial of compensatory time off for that reason "only occurred occasionally and was not routine." Id. The plaintiffs claim it occurs all the time.
I would reverse the judgment of the district court with respect to this issueonly. As to the remaining issues in the case, I concur in the majority opinion.
Home190 f3d 753 william russell aiken, et al. v. city of memphis, tennessee