Opinion ID: 605
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Applicability of the FLSA Overtime Provisions

Text: Pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 207, and with regard to covered employees, no employer shall employ any of his employees... for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half time the regular rate at which he is employed. 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1). Congress extended this maximum hours provision to domestic workers in 1974. Coke v. Long Island Care at Home, Ltd., 376 F.3d 118, 123 (2d Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds, 546 U.S. 1147, 126 S.Ct. 1189, 163 L.Ed.2d 1125 (Mem.) (2006). However, 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21) provides that Section 207 shall not apply with respect to ... any employee who is employed in domestic service in a household and who resides in such household. 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21). The Sabhnanis argue that this exemption to Section 207 applies to Samirah and Enung and thus that the district court's restitution award, which was calculated using the overtime provision, was erroneous. The government argues that the exemption does not apply on the theory that Samirah and Enung did not reside with the Sabhnanis because the Sabhnanis failed to provide, among other things, appropriate living quarters, adequate sleeping facilities and adequate meals. Gov't's Br. 127. It is undisputed that Samirah and Enung were employed in domestic service in a household under 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21); the only question is whether they were employees who resided in the Sabhnanis' home. Well-established principles of construction dictate that statutory analysis necessarily begins with the `plain meaning' of a law's text and, absent ambiguity, will generally end there. United States v. Venturella, 391 F.3d 120, 125 (2d Cir.2004) (quoting Collazos v. United States, 368 F.3d 190, 196 (2d Cir.2004)) (internal quotation marks omitted). We interpret the unambiguous terms of statutes according to their ordinary and plain meaning. Lee v. Bankers Trust Co., 166 F.3d 540, 544 (2d Cir.1999) (It is axiomatic that the plain meaning of a statute controls its interpretation, and that judicial review must end at the statute's unambiguous terms. (citation omitted)). To reside generally means [t]o dwell permanently or for a considerable time; to have one's settled or usual abode; to live, in or at a particular place. Oxford English Dictionary (2d Ed.1989). In Venturella, we noted that the term resides in its normal use denotes residence. Venturella, 391 F.3d at 125 (citing Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1931 (2000); United States v. Namey, 364 F.3d 843, 845 (6th Cir.2004)). Other courts have also determined that whether one resides in a place, in the natural and ordinary sense of the phrase, refers to whether one lives there and makes one's permanent or semi-permanent home in that place. See, e.g., Weems v. Little Rock Police Dep't, 453 F.3d 1010, 1016 (8th Cir.2006); Gusewelle v. City of Wood River, 374 F.3d 569, 577 (7th Cir.2004) (city rules requiring employees to reside within city limits meant employees must maintain their primary residence there); see also Rosenruist-Gestao E Servicos LDA v. Virgin Enters. Ltd., 511 F.3d 437, 450 (4th Cir.2007) (Wilkinson, J., dissenting) (noting that dictionary meaning of a witness residing in a judicial district for purposes of 35 U.S.C. § 24 is that the witness dwell[s] permanently or for a considerable time there). This meaning is even used when such residence is involuntary, as in the case of one residing in a prison. See, e.g., Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U.S. 460, 466, 103 S.Ct. 864, 74 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (describing claim of protected liberty interest in continuing to reside in the general prison population), abrogated on other grounds by Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483 & n. 5, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). Because there is no doubt that Samirah and Enung lived in the Sabhnanis' house and did so as permanent residents for a considerable time, we conclude that the maids were employee[s] who [were] employed in domestic service in a household and who reside[d] in such household for the purpose of the § 213(b)(21) exemption. See, e.g., Manliguez v. Joseph, 226 F.Supp.2d 377, 381, 388 (E.D.N.Y.2002) (finding that live-in domestic servant was covered by § 213(b)(21) exemption); see also Almeida v. Aguinaga, 456 F.Supp.2d 505, 506, 508 (S.D.N.Y.2006) (plaintiff live-in domestic servant conceded, and court agreed, that § 213(b)(21) exemption applied). The sources relied on by the government to argue against this construction of Section 207 are both unpersuasive and inapplicable. The government points to an Opinion Letter of the Department of Labor that interpreted, in the context of a different regulation, what it means for an employee to reside[] on his employer's premises... for extended periods of time. Opinion Letter Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 1981 WL 179033 (Dep't of Labor, Feb. 3, 1981) (hereinafter FLSA Opinion Letter) (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 785.23). The letter determined that the employees in question, who were employed as houseparents in a privately-owned community for the developmentally disabled and who stayed overnight at the facilities for five or six days in a row, were residing at their employer's premises notwithstanding the fact that the employees maintained their own private residences. Id. Where the facilities offered by the employer provide a home-like environment with private quarters separate from the residents of the group home, according to the FLSA Opinion Letter, the employees should be regarded as residing there (meaning that they need not be paid for hours spent on their own in the private quarters) on the theory that [i]n light of the amount of time they spend at the group home, it is in effect a second residence. Id. The government claims that under this interpretation, the maids were not residing in the Sabhnanis' house because they were not provided with a home-like environment with private quarters. Nothing about the FLSA Opinion Letter, however, suggests that it was an interpretation of what it means to reside in [a] household for purposes of § 213(b)(21). Indeed, it is clear in context that the letter is attempting to answer an entirely different question from the one posed by this case: whether an employee with his or her own private residence can also reside at the employer's premises. The letter's answer to this question tells us very little about whether, on the facts of this case, Samirah and Enung, who had nowhere else to go, were employees who resided in the Sabhnani household. Nor does it purport to suggest, at least with regard to domestic service, that it is only when an employee has private quarters separate and apart from the area where he or she works that this employee should be regarded as residing at the employer's premisesa circumstance that, in any event, provides a somewhat arbitrary basis for distinguishing among domestic workers who live in their employers' homes and who argue that they are entitled to overtime pay. The FLSA Opinion Letter thus gives us no cause to doubt our interpretation of § 213(b)(21). For the same reasons, we find the cases relied on by the government that apply the Opinion Letter (again to facts not similar to those in this case) inapposite. See, e.g., Chao v. Jasmine Hall Care Homes Inc., No. 2:05-cv-1306, 2007 WL 4591438, -3 (E.D.Cal. Dec.28, 2007). We therefore vacate the restitution award and remand for recalculation. We note, however, that although § 213(b)(21) prevents the calculation of restitution from being based on an entitlement to overtime, this exemption does not excuse the employer from paying the live-in worker at the applicable minimum wage rate for all hours worked. 29 C.F.R. § 552.102(a). We find for the reasons set forth below that the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding 24 hours per day's worth of pay for the days on which the Sabhnanis were present in the house, and that the awarding of double damages was proper. Accordingly, the new award need not deviate from those aspects of the original.