Opinion ID: 2924505
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The extent to which the internship is tied to the

Text: intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit. 4. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar. 5. The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning. 6. The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern. 7. The extent to which the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship. Glatt, 791 F.3d at 384. Under the Second Circuit’s approach, “[n]o one factor is dispositive and every factor need not point in the same direction for the court to 24 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 25 of 32 conclude that the intern is not an employee . . . .” Id. Rather, courts must engage in a “weighing and balancing [of] all of the circumstances,” including, where appropriate, other considerations not expressed in the seven factors. Id. The Second Circuit has described this approach as “flexible” and “faithful to Portland Terminal,” reasoning that “[n]othing in the Supreme Court’s decision suggests that any particular fact was essential to its conclusion or that the facts on which it relied would have the same relevance in every workplace.” Id. at 384-85. We agree with the Second Circuit’s reasoning and its interpretation of Portland Terminal. The factors that the Second Circuit has identified effectively tweak the Supreme Court’s considerations in evaluating the training program in Portland Terminal to make them applicable to modern-day internships like the type at issue here. In many ways, the Glatt factors involve consideration of the same or similar facts to those that the Supreme Court found important in Portland Terminal and that the DOL Handbook guidance deemed relevant factors for consideration. Indeed, factors 2, 3, and 5 are more detailed expressions of Portland Terminal’s concern that the training be similar to that available in a vocational or other educational environment. Likewise, factors 2 through 6 reflect Portland Terminal’s attention to the benefit to the intern. In addition, factors 2 and 6 relate directly to Portland Terminal’s consideration of whether the intern displaces 25 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 26 of 32 regular employees and whether the intern works under the close supervision of existing employees. Finally, factors 1 and 7 are essentially the same as Portland Terminal’s considerations that the intern and employer both understand that the intern will not receive wages and that the intern is not entitled to a job upon completion of the internship, respectively. Only Portland Terminal’s reference to the railroad’s receipt of “no ‘immediate advantage’ from any work done by the trainees” is not accounted for by the Glatt factors. But the training in Portland Terminal was so different from a modern internship for academic, certification, and licensure purposes that we do not see how this particular consideration sheds light on the primary-beneficiary analysis here. In Portland Terminal, despite not receiving an “immediate advantage” from the training program, the railroad had a significant economic incentive to offer the training because it needed a ready pool of qualified brakemen from which it could hire. In the absence of the training, there may well not have been any. If the railroad had also obtained a direct and immediate financial or competitive advantage from providing a training program that it was going to have to offer for its own business reasons regardless of whether it received a direct advantage, that could have served as an indication that the railroad was taking unfair advantage of the situation. 26 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 27 of 32 But, as we have explained, the modern internship as a requirement for academic credit and professional certification and licensure is very different. For starters, the students seeking the internships—as opposed to a particular company’s business requirements—drive the need for the internships to exist. Second, licensure and certification laws provide evidence that we as a society have decided that clinical internships are necessary and important. Third, we find it difficult to conceive that anesthesiology practices would be willing to take on the risks, costs, and detriments of teaching students in a clinical environment for extended periods (four semesters, for example) without receiving some benefit for their troubles. As we have further noted, though, the mere fact that an employer obtains a benefit from providing a clinical internship does not mean that the employer is the “primary beneficiary” of the relationship. Therefore, we cannot see how consideration of whether the employer gains an “immediate advantage” from an internship, in and of itself, brings us any closer to resolving who the primary beneficiary of the relationship is. Instead, we focus on the Glatt factors. In order to allow the district court to apply these factors in the first instance and, if it desires, to permit the parties to 27 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 28 of 32 supplement the record, we remand this case to the district court. But first we provide some guidance on applying some of the factors.11 The fourth factor focuses on the extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitment by corresponding to the academic calendar. In a case like this one, where the clinical training and the academic commitment are one and the same, this consideration must account for whether a legitimate reason exists for clinical training to occur on days when school is out of session. As for the fifth factor—the extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning—this consideration must recognize the goals of the internship and determine whether the duration of the internship is necessary to accomplish them. In making this evaluation, the court should keep in mind that designing an internship is not an exact science. We cannot expect that the length of the internship will always match up perfectly with the skills to be taught and the experience to be gained through the program. An internship that is longer than absolutely necessary to accomplish the educational and experiential goals of the program does not necessarily weigh in favor of a determination that the intern is an 11 Certain factors, such as the first one, for instance, are self-explanatory, so we do not elaborate on them. 28 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 29 of 32 “employee.” Instead, the court should consider whether the duration of the internship is grossly excessive in comparison to the period of beneficial learning. As part of this consideration, the court should also evaluate the extent to which the nature of the training requires the daily schedule that the intern must endure. In this case, graduation, certification, and licensure requirements all demanded that students participate in at least 550 cases involving a variety of procedures. Again, we imagine that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to plan the scheduling of SRNAs for precisely 550 different procedures over four semesters, particularly in view of the constantly changing nature of the medical schedule. Nor do we think that the law requires such precision. We also note that the SRNAs’ clinical work was required to extend for four semesters, even if the Students finished 550 cases in a shorter period. As a result, it does not seem to us that the four-semester duration of the program would have been excessive, no matter how many cases the students completed during that time. But if the reason that the SRNAs completed well in excess of 550 cases during their four clinical semesters was because they were made to work grossly excessive hours, that would be an indication that the employer may have unfairly taken advantage of or otherwise abused the SRNAs and that they should be regarded as “employees” under the FLSA. 29 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 30 of 32 The sixth factor evaluates the extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern. This case involves a unique consideration on this factor. The Students assert that CRNAs each worked fewer hours than they otherwise would have, in the absence of the SRNAs, meaning that the SRNAs displaced CRNA hours. For support, they point to the Revised Teaching Rule, which allowed Collier to be reimbursed by Medicare for providing anesthesia in two rooms while having to pay only a single CRNA—something that Collier could not have done if the SRNAs were not there. We do not opine on whether, in fact, CRNAs worked fewer hours as a result of the SRNAs’ presence, under the Revised Teaching Rule. But if they did, we do not think that such a fact, in and of itself, would resolve which party this factor favors. The analysis under this factor must also account for the existence of a Medicare rule that contemplates the use of two SRNAs to assist one CRNA in two rooms simultaneously. A Medicare rule obviously cannot inform whether a SRNA is an “employee” under the FLSA. Nevertheless, the rule’s existence and endorsement of the staffing of two patient rooms with one CRNA and two SRNAs suggests that, at least from an anesthesia-administration point of view, there was nothing unsafe or wrong with Collier’s scheduling of two SRNAs to be overseen by a single CRNA. Under these circumstances, therefore, it would not be 30 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 31 of 32 appropriate to consider Collier’s use of the Rule as evidence that Collier unfairly took advantage of the SRNAs when it scheduled two SRNAs to be supervised by a single CRNA. Of course, to the extent that CRNA hours may have been displaced by SRNA hours for reasons other than the Revised Teaching Rule, the court should evaluate those circumstances on their own merit. In applying the factors to ascertain the primary beneficiary of an internship relationship, we caution that the proper resolution of a case may not necessarily be an all-or-nothing determination. That is, we can envision a scenario where a portion of the student’s efforts constitute a bona fide internship that primarily benefits the student, but the employer also takes unfair advantage of the student’s need to complete the internship by making continuation of the internship implicitly or explicitly contingent on the student’s performance of tasks or his working of hours well beyond the bounds of what could fairly be expected to be a part of the internship.12 For example, in the context of an internship required for an academic degree and professional licensure and certification in a medical field, consider an employer who requires an intern to paint the employer’s house in order for the student to complete an internship of which the student was otherwise the primary beneficiary. Under those circumstances, the student would not constitute an 12 By explaining this point, we do not mean to suggest that a split decision would or would not be appropriate in this particular case. In the interests of thoroughness, though, we simply note this point. 31 Case: 14-13169 Date Filed: 09/11/2015 Page: 32 of 32 “employee” for work performed within the legitimate confines of the internship but could qualify as an “employee” for all hours expended in painting the house, a task so far beyond the pale of the contemplated internship that it clearly did not serve to further the goals of the internship. Finally, we do not take a position at this time regarding whether the Students in this case were “employees” for purposes of the FLSA.