Opinion ID: 200756
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Overpayment II: The Law Enforcement Exemption

Text: 36 The district court's third alternative ground for summary judgment was that the officers have received all of the overtime payments due to them because they are covered by the FLSA's partial exemption for law enforcement personnel. Under 29 U.S.C. § 207(k), as interpreted by the Secretary of Labor, no overtime compensation is required for law enforcement personnel until the number of hours worked exceeds 171 hours in a 28-day work period, or a proportional number of hours in a shorter work period — in the case of a 7-day work period, that proportion works out to 43 hours. 20 See id.; 29 C.F.R. §§ 553.230(b), (c). The effect of the § 207(k) partial exemption is to soften the impact of the FLSA's overtime provisions on public employers in two ways: it raises the average number of hours the employer can require law enforcement and fire protection personnel to work without triggering the overtime requirement, and it accommodates the inherently unpredictable nature of firefighting and police work by permitting public employers to adopt work periods longer than one week. See Wethington v. City of Montgomery, 935 F.2d 222, 224 (11th Cir.1991); Maldonado v. Administracion de Correccion, 1993 WL 269650, at  (D.P.R. Jul.1, 1993). The longer the work period, the more likely it is that days of calm will offset the inevitable emergencies, resulting in decreased overtime liability. 37 The § 207(k) exemption applies, however, only if the employees are engaged in fire protection ... [or] law enforcement activities within the meaning of § 207(k), and only if the employer has adopted a qualifying work period. The employer bears the burden of proving that these conditions are satisfied. Barefield v. Village of Winnetka, 81 F.3d 704, 710 (7th Cir.1996); Birdwell v. City of Gadsden, 970 F.2d 802, 805 (11th Cir.1992). Once the factual criteria are established, the employer can simply start paying its employees under § 207(k); the employees' approval is not required. Barefield, 81 F.3d at 710. In this case, the parties agree that the officers are engaged in law enforcement activities as defined by 29 C.F.R. § 553.211. The sole question is whether the Town has adopted a qualifying work period, which is any established and regularly recurring period of work which, under the terms of the Act and the legislative history, cannot be less than 7 consecutive days nor more than 28 consecutive days. § 553.224(a). 38 On this record, the Town has not established a qualifying work period under § 207(k). 21 All of the evidence in the record indicates that the Town employed the officers on repeating six-day cycles of four days on-duty followed by two days off-duty. The CBAs state this schedule explicitly. And while the Town could in theory employ a work period for purposes of § 207(k) that differs from the terms of the CBAs, see Franklin v. City of Kettering, 246 F.3d 531, 536 (6th Cir.2001), nothing in the record shows that it has done so. The Town does not point to a single statement or document indicating that it adopted a work period longer than six days. Instead, it offers only the argument that the officers' work period is longer than seven days because it is a repeated cycle of six days, and that the work period is inevitably shorter than 28 days because the officers disrupt their own schedules with sick days, vacation days, and holidays. This argument fails as a matter of logic. It is also inconsistent with § 553.224(a), which requires that the work period must be established and regularly recurring (emphasis added). 22 39 We hold that the Town is not entitled to the § 207(k) exemption. But we add a caveat: The officers acknowledge in their brief that notwithstanding the CBAs, a few officers worked repeating cycles of five days on-duty followed by two-days off-duty. We cannot determine from the record whether the Town in fact adopted a seven-day work period as to these individual officers. Cf. 29 C.F.R. § 553.224(b) (employer may have different work periods applicable to different employees). This issue remains open to the Town on remand.