Opinion ID: 686722
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Willfulness of the FLSA Violations

Text: 91 The FLSA imposes a two-year statute of limitations unless the violations are shown to be willful, in which case a three-year period applies. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 255(a). In the present case, the district court found that the FLSA violations at The Monitor were not willful and thus awarded back wages for only the two-year period before the suit was filed rather than the three-year period claimed by the Secretary. The Secretary asserts that The Monitor 's FLSA violations were indeed willful and that the district court's determination to the contrary was in error. 92 FLSA violations are willful where the employer knew or showed reckless disregard for the matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the statute. McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U.S. 128, 133, 108 S.Ct. 1677, 1681, 100 L.Ed.2d 115 (1988). Whether an FLSA violation is willful is a mixed question of law and fact and is therefore subject to the clearly erroneous standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a). See McLaughlin v. Hogar San Jose, Inc., 865 F.2d 12, 14 (1st Cir.1989) (holding that whether an FLSA violation was committed in good faith is a mixed question of law and fact and is therefore reviewed only for clear error). Appealing a district court's finding on a mixed question is an uphill battle as Congress has in unambiguous language expressly granted the primary decisional power in this respect to the district court, not to the Secretary or the courts of appeal. See id. (citations omitted). The clearly erroneous standard plainly does not entitle a reviewing court to reverse the finding of the trier of fact simply because it is convinced that it would have decided the case differently. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, North Carolina, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). Rather, [a] finding is 'clearly erroneous' when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 542, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948). Where the evidence is susceptible of two plausible interpretations, the trier of fact's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U.S. at 574, 105 S.Ct. at 1511-12 (citations omitted). 93 Based upon our review of the record, we find no clear error in the district court's finding that The Monitor did not willfully violate the overtime provisions of the FLSA. 17 The Secretary did present plausible arguments in support of his position. The Secretary argued that the violations were willful and could not have been the product of ignorance because the DOL explained the overtime and recordkeeping provisions of the FLSA during its 1974 investigation of the newspaper. Further, the fact that The Monitor paid its employees for all reported overtime demonstrates that it was indeed aware of the FLSA overtime requirements. Additionally, several employees testified that they had been instructed by superiors to report no more than forty hours on their weekly timecards. Those employees also testified that they were occasionally reprimanded when they did report overtime and were told to alter their weekly timecards so that no overtime hours would be included. 94 In its defense, The Monitor argued that its policy of discouraging overtime hours while paying those employees who did in fact report them does not compel the conclusion that it was willfully violating the FLSA. Rather, they contended that this policy illustrates the efforts of an employer trying to do the right thing in the face of hopelessly outdated 40-year-old DOL journalism interpretations which provide absolutely no guidance regarding which journalists in a modern newsroom are exempt and which are not. In support of this contention, The Monitor 's editor-in-chief testified that he had never instructed anyone at The Monitor to alter a timecard, and that The Monitor paid its employees for all reported overtime. The reporters also testified that they would often work unreported overtime to satisfy their own desire to produce high quality work and to avoid the perception that they were slow writers. 95 Our scrutiny of the record convinces us that both parties bulwarked their respective positions with tenable arguments. Consequently, we cannot find the district court's ruling to be clearly erroneous. 18