Opinion ID: 595568
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Substantially Related Standard

Text: 3 Section 7(a) of the FLSA mandates that an employer must compensate an employee at an overtime rate for all work performed in excess of forty hours during a workweek. 2 Section 7(k), however, provides a partial exemption for specified public agency employers: employees engaged in fire protection activities must work an aggregate of 212 hours during a work period of 28 consecutive days and employees engaged in law enforcement activities must work an aggregate of 171 hours during the same period before being entitled to overtime compensation. 3 Although not specifically mentioned in the FLSA, the implementing regulations state that ambulance and rescue service employees of a public agency may be treated as firefighting or law enforcement personnel for purposes of section 7(k) if they form an integral part of the public agency's fire protection [or law enforcement] activities 4 or if their services are substantially related to [such] activities. 5 We are concerned here only with the latter substantially related standard. 4 Before we further consider this standard, we note that any exemption from the FLSA, including that set out in section 7(k) and the implementing regulations, must be narrowly construed against the employer. 6 We find that a narrow construction of the substantially related standard of 29 C.F.R. § 553.215 is particularly imperative. First, in drafting section 7(k), Congress did not specifically mention extending the exemption to ambulance and rescue service employees. Indeed, the only mention of so extending the exemption in the legislative history of section 7(k) is in a colloquy that took place on the House floor as section 7(k) was being debated; this colloquy indicates that Congress intended that the exemption be so extended only when the employees' activities substantially include rescue and ambulance work associated with fire protection and law enforcement. 7 The intention to extend the exemption to ambulance and rescue service employees is not reflected either in the statute itself or in congressional reports related to the statute. 8 Thus, the extension as written into the regulations should be very narrowly construed. Second, the purpose of the substantially related standard is obviously to ensure that ambulance and rescue service personnel who are acting like firefighters and law enforcement officers are treated as such, regardless of whether they can be made an integral part of the fire or law enforcement department. For example, integration of an emergency medical service into the fire department may be impossible because the fire department is entirely volunteer. The purpose of the substantially related standard certainly is not to cast the exemption net any more broadly than does the integral part of test. Thus, we will construe the substantially related standard very narrowly. We also keep in mind that the burden of proving the exemption is upon the employer, as is the burden of proving any exemption under the FLSA. 9 5 In order to meet the substantially related standard, a two-prong test must be satisfied: 1) the ambulance and rescue service employees must have received training in the rescue of fire, crime, and accident victims or firefighters or law enforcement personnel injured in the performance of their respective duties; and 2) these employees must be regularly dispatched to fires, crime scenes, riots, natural disasters, and accidents. 10 On the record submitted to the district court, the County failed to meet its burden of proving that, as a matter of law, it met this two-part test. We discuss the two parts of the test separately below.
6 To meet the first prong of the substantially related standard, the County must show that the EMTs have received training in the rescue of fire, crime, and accident victims or firefighters or law enforcement personnel injured in the performance of their respective duties.... 11 The Department of Labor, in a Wage and Hour Division Administrative Letter Ruling, has explained this first prong of the standard as follows: 7 The first test requires that EMTs be trained to rescue individuals who have been injured or who are in danger of being injured. Under these circumstances, the term rescue refers to actions taken to free a victim from imminent danger or harm by the most expeditious means. In many cases, this may require an EMT to take action beyond merely applying medical treatment such as bandaging, administering oxygen, or transporting an individual to a hospital. For instance, there may be situations where the EMTs, as the first responders at the scene of an automobile accident, must extricate an injured person from a vehicle in order to begin treatment and preparation for movement as soon as possible.... This means that an EMT must be properly trained to operate special types of equipment, such as hydraulic spreaders or chemical foam extinguishers, in case they are available for their use at the accident scene. Therefore, we interpret the requirement that an EMT be trained to rescue as meaning that the individual has knowledge of the basic life-saving procedures and life support procedures (i.e. CPR, administering oxygen, and extrication techniques). However, it is not necessary for an EMT to routinely perform any or all of these procedures in order to meet the requirements of the first test referred to above. 12 8 We find the Department of Labor's interpretation persuasive. Accordingly, we hold that EMTs are trained to rescue only if they have knowledge of extrication techniques, that is, only if they have some specific training in methods of free[ing] a victim from imminent danger or harm by the most expeditious means. 9 The district court erred in its determination that the County proved compliance with the trained to rescue requirement because the evidence offered by the County failed to show that such training was a prerequisite to employment. We remand for the district court to require the County to further develop the facts regarding its training requirements and for the court to determine whether the County meets the trained to rescue requirement as interpreted in the Department of Labor's Letter Ruling.
10 To satisfy the second prong of the substantially related test, the County must show that the EMTs are regularly dispatched to fires, crime scenes, riots, natural disasters and accidents. 13 The Department of Labor has said: 11 The second test to determine if activities are 'substantially related' to fire protection or law enforcement is that EMTs must be 'regularly dispatched' to such things as fires or accidents.... There is no specific frequency of occurrence which establishes 'regularity'; it must be determined on the basis of the facts of each case. 14 12 Although we agree with the Department of Labor that a case by case analysis is appropriate, we establish here some guidelines for the analysis. 13 We first consider which dispatches are to fires, crime scenes, riots, natural disasters and accidents. In concluding that the EMTs are regularly dispatched to these types of rescues, the district court considered only those dispatches that fell in the categories of fires, crimes, and automobile accidents. 15 The district court was correct in its selection of these categories, and only these categories, of dispatches. 16 Although the test as set out in the regulation refers generally to accidents, not just to automobile accidents, the regulation may not reasonably be construed to mean all accidents. The purpose of the regulation's two-part test is to determine if the services the EMTs provide are substantially related to firefighting or law enforcement activities. The information submitted to the district court by the parties indicates that many of the accidents to which the EMTs respond are not related to either of these activities; for example, many of the accidents involve household falls. 17 The only category of accidents in the information submitted by the parties that can be said to be substantially related to either firefighting or law enforcement activities is automobiles accidents. Accordingly, the district court properly considered only dispatches to fires, crimes, and automobile accidents in determining whether the EMTs are regularly dispatched to fires, crime scenes, riots, natural disasters and accidents. 18 14 We next consider whether the dispatches to fires, crimes, and automobile accidents are regular. In concluding that these dispatches are regular, the district court considered only the number of such dispatches per week, month, or year. This is insufficient. The district court should have considered the following factors: (1) the percentage of the Service's total calls that are dispatches to fires, crimes, and automobile accidents; 19 (2) the percentage of total EMT man-hours spent responding to dispatches to fires, crimes, and automobile accidents; and (3) the percentage of the total number of all fires, automobile accident, and police calls that occur throughout the county to which the Service is dispatched. 20 The parties provided the district court with a plethora of numbers and statistics; the plaintiffs provided information relevant to factor one, and the County provided information relevant to factor two. None of the information provided by the parties, however, is helpful as to factor three. To determine whether the Service is regularly dispatched to fires, it is imperative that the district court know whether the Service is dispatched to every fire, every other fire, or one in every 100 fires to which the fire department is called. 21 Likewise, to determine whether the Service is regularly dispatched to crime scenes and automobile accidents, the district court must know under what circumstances and how often the Service is dispatched to respond to police calls. We do not speculate as to what percentage under each of these three factors will satisfy the regularly dispatched requirement in this case. We leave this to the district court's determination following further factual development.