Opinion ID: 439951
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Laffey I Holdings Challenged as Clearly Erroneous

Text: 37 NWA does not dispute that Laffey I actually decided two issues which it now seeks to relitigate: first, that equal work was performed by NWA stewardesses and pursers, and second, that NWA, as a matter of law, could have willfully violated the Equal Pay Act notwithstanding the absence of an iniquitous ... state-of-mind. Laffey I, 567 F.2d at 461; NWA Brief at 11 n. 1, 13. NWA seeks to reopen these two issues, not by positing the existence of supervening case law, but by arguing that our prior holdings were clearly erroneous and that adherence to law of the case in these instances would work a manifest injustice. Melong v. Micronesian Claims Commission, 643 F.2d 10, 17 (D.C.Cir.1980) (quoting White v. Murtha, 377 F.2d 428, 432 (5th Cir.1967)). 18 Because we perceive no error whatever in Laffey I 's disposition of these two issues, let alone the clear error and manifest injustice that would warrant departure from the law of the case, we reject NWA's arguments and reaffirm the holdings of Laffey I with respect to the issues of equal work and willfulness. 38 Moreover, we take this opportunity to emphasize that this court will not, absent truly exceptional circumstances, Laffey II, 642 F.2d at 585, look favorably on arguments against the law of the case which fall only under the manifest injustice rubric. 19 We do not intend to allow this avenue of attack on the law of the case to become an auxiliary vehicle for the repetition of arguments previously advanced, without success, in appellate briefs, petitions for rehearing, and petitions for certiorari.
39 In its 1973 Findings, the district court concluded that the jobs of purser and stewardess at NWA require equal skill, effort and responsibility and are performed under similar working conditions. 366 F.Supp. at 788, 789 (Findings of Fact (FOF) 78; Conclusions of Law 2, 4). In Laffey I, this court explicitly affirmed this finding and conclusion, 567 F.2d at 453, thus establishing the equal work prerequisite to Equal Pay Act liability as the law of the case. 40 NWA's challenge to this holding hinges on its interpretation of two of the district court's findings of fact in 1973. In one pivotal finding, FOF 65, the district court described the chain of command for an NWA flight: 41 If one purser is aboard, he is denominated the Senior Cabin Attendant irrespective of his relative length of service as compared to the other attendants. If two or more pursers are aboard the flight, the most senior purser is the Senior Cabin Attendant. If no purser is aboard the flight, the most senior stewardess or FSA is the Senior Cabin Attendant. 42 1973 Findings, 366 F.Supp. at 785. The nature and scope of a Senior Cabin Attendant's supervisory responsibilities is described in another critical finding, FOF 67: 43 Stewardesses who serve as Senior Cabin Attendant are subject to discipline if they fail to carry out their supervisory responsibilities, and are held just as accountable as pursers who fail to carry out their supervisory responsibilities. 44 Id. The district court also noted in this latter finding that NWA had no merit pay adjustment whereby either pursers or stewardesses who supervise effectively were paid more than less capable or effective supervisors. 45 Seizing upon the district court's recognition in FOF 65, above, that pursers supervised stewardesses, but not vice versa, NWA argues vehemently that the two jobs cannot be deemed equal because [j]obs that entail different degrees of supervisory responsibility are not equal within the meaning of the Equal Pay Act. NWA Brief at 41. Next, relying upon the court's description in FOF 67, above, of the cabin attendants' accountability for the discharge of their supervisory duties, NWA maintains that the district court's findings compel the conclusion that the supervisory responsibility had real content and that Laffey I 's conclusion that the pursers' supervisory function was insignificant thus actually contradicted the trial judge's findings. Id. at 42. 46 We cannot accept either branch of NWA's argument. It is, of course, elementary that jobs need not be identical in every respect before the Equal Pay Act is applicable .... Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188, 203 n. 24, 94 S.Ct. 2223, 2232 n. 24, 41 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974). In Laffey I, this court explained: 47 [T]he phrase equal work does not mean that the jobs must be identical, but merely that they must be substantially equal. A wage differential is justified only if it compensates for an appreciable variation in skill, effort or responsibility between otherwise comparable job work activities. 48 567 F.2d at 449 (citations omitted). This substantially equal test, which has been adopted by no fewer than nine other circuits, Thompson v. Sawyer, 678 F.2d 257, 272 n. 12 (D.C.Cir.1982), necessarily implies that there can be job responsibilities--including supervisory duties--so  'insubstantial or minor'  as not to  'render the equal pay standard inapplicable.'  Laffey I, 567 F.2d at 449 (quoting 29 C.F.R. Sec. 800.122 (1975)). 49 Therefore, to the extent that NWA's argument suggests that any difference in supervisory responsibility renders jobs unequal, it is manifestly incorrect as a matter of law. Critically, the authority NWA cites as support for this proposition is not, in fact, inconsistent with the substantially equal test. 20 Indeed, NWA itself acknowledges several other cases in which supervisory responsibilities were found to be too minor to warrant a finding of unequal responsibility. See Hill v. J.C. Penney Co., 688 F.2d 370, 373-74 (5th Cir.1982); Hodgson v. American Bank of Commerce, 447 F.2d 416, 422 (5th Cir.1971). 50 NWA's claim that Laffey I 's finding of equal work actually contradicted the district court's findings is also patently incorrect. As we understand NWA's argument, FOF 67, when read together with FOF 65, compels the conclusion that the district court viewed the supervisory responsibilities as not insubstantial. This contention, however, plainly overlooks the district court's express finding that the pursers' supervisory functions require no greater skill, effort or responsibility than the other functions assigned to all cabin attendants, 1973 Findings, 366 F.Supp. at 786 (FOF 69), and its further explicit finding of equal skill, effort and responsibility on the part of stewardesses and pursers, id. at 788-89 (FOF 78; Conclusions of Law 2, 4). It follows as ineluctably as night follows day that the district court found that the pursers' supervisory duties did not alter the equivalence of the two jobs under scrutiny in this case. 21 51 There is, in cutting through the prolific underbrush planted in our way by NWA, upon analysis no conflict whatever between the district court and this court as to the importance of the supervisory duties assigned to pursers. Laffey I affirmed the district court's finding that NWA purser and stewardess positions are substantially equal within the intent of the Equal Pay Act.... 567 F.2d at 453. NWA has come forward with nothing to suggest that this affirmance of the district court's conclusion with respect to the importance of supervisory duties was in error. NWA's argument, based ultimately on a tortured reading of the district court's findings and an inaccurate portrayal of the applicable law, fails.
52 Under 29 U.S.C. Sec. 255(a) (1976), a willful violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), of which the Equal Pay Act is a part, triggers a three-year, as opposed to the Act's ordinary, two-year statute of limitations. In Laffey I, this court determined that NWA's violation of the Equal Pay Act had been willful within the meaning of section 255(a), 567 F.2d at 463, thus rendering NWA liable for a third year of backpay. In reaching this conclusion, the court canvassed the legislative history of section 255(a) and rejected NWA's suggestion that a violation must be animated by a bad purpose or evil intent to be deemed willful. Id. at 461. Instead, the court determined that employer noncompliance with the Equal Pay Act is willful in at least two other instances: where the employer is cognizant of an appreciable possibility that he may be subject to the statutory requirements and fails to take steps reasonably calculated to resolve the doubt, and where an equally aware employer consciously and voluntarily charts a course which turns out to be wrong. Id. at 462. 53 NWA was held to have failed the second branch of this test: 54 NWA not only knew of the Equal Pay Act and its content but also correctly understood its prohibition on different salary levels for men and women performing substantially similar work. With little or nothing beyond internal consideration by laymen--even after the present legal challenge got under way--the company consciously though erroneously concluded that its treatment of pursers and stewardesses was unaffected by the Act. We deem that sufficient to comprise willfulness; in the District Court's words, [t]he conduct of the Company in the exercise of that judgment was willful. Id. at 463 (citation omitted). 22 55 In this appeal, NWA argues that the law of the case established in Laffey I is clearly erroneous and the source of manifest injustice, once again urging upon us a contrary analysis of the legislative intent undergirding section 255(a). NWA contends that a proper reading of the legislative history of the 1966 FLSA amendments confirms that Congress meant [the willfulness standard] to encompass only intentional disregard for the law, rather than the deliberate-but-erroneous test adopted in Laffey I. NWA Brief at 23. For the reasons stated below, we disagree with NWA as to the proper test of willfulness under the Equal Pay Act. Accordingly, we reaffirm Laffey I 's finding that NWA willfully violated the Act within the meaning of section 255(a). 56 In recasting its version of the relevant legislative intent, NWA argues that the Laffey I court was erroneously of the view that there was no relevant legislative history to shed light on the pivotal word, willful. NWA Brief at 85. NWA accordingly invites us to focus on three unadopted 1965 bills which were the predecessors of the 1966 amendments. NWA deems crucial certain portions of the hearings on one of those bills, H.R. 8259, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965), and the report of the House Education and Labor Committee on a second bill, H.R. 10518. H.R.Rep. No. 871, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965). The importance of the latter is touted on the basis that it represents the first appear[ance] [of section 255(a) ] in its present form. NWA Reply Brief at 42. 23 57 The original administration-sponsored bill, H.R. 8259, sought, inter alia, to increase the limitations period to three years for all FLSA claims, and accordingly did not prescribe willfulness as a precondition to liability for the third year. NWA attempts to fashion a favorable interpretation of the willfulness provision ultimately incorporated into section 255(a) in the following manner: first, NWA summarizes a few snippets of testimony against H.R. 8259, 24 and then notes that at the conclusion of the hearings, the Subcommittee met in executive session and drafted a new bill that included the [willfulness] language ultimately enacted. NWA Brief at 85. NWA then attributes this change to legislators who opposed the extension of liability in cases not involving conscious disregard of the law. Id. at 86. To substantiate this new learning as to the true meaning of the legislative materials, NWA cites a sentence from the minority statement in the Committee report on the revised bill, indicating that the Subcommittee's discussions had resulted in the adoption of several amendments offered by members of the minority. Id. (citing H.R.Rep. No. 871, supra, at 74). NWA jumps from this statement to the conclusion that the willfulness provision was adopted in response to the criticism of the proposal to impose an additional year of liability even on 'honest' violators of the [Equal Pay] Act. NWA Reply Brief at 42. 58 NWA's argument proves no such thing. The single sentence upon which it relies from the minority statement provides woefully inadequate support for its restrictive reading of the willfulness language. That sentence stands all by itself in the introduction to the minority report. Nowhere in this document is there any description of the amendments which the minority proposed, why it proposed them, what the majority said in response to the proposals, or why the proposals were adopted by the full Committee. Moreover, the minority report does not contain a single word about the willfulness provision in H.R. 10815. This brings us, then, to a broader point about this provision. The proposed legislation was lengthy, complex, and dealt with a number of thorny issues, including an increase in the minimum wage and a significant expansion of the FLSA's coverage. Adoption of the willfulness language ultimately codified in section 255(a) was undoubtedly a matter of limited congressional focus in the 1965 and 1966 deliberations over this legislation; the paucity of pertinent legislative materials, therefore, is not surprising. 59 Given the relative silence of the legislative record in this respect, Laffey I, 567 F.2d at 460, a silence which NWA has not persuasively broken with its theory advanced on this third appeal, we defer to the careful treatment and final settlement of this issue in Laffey I. The law of the case we honor here rests on the Laffey I court's painstaking review of the legislative history, including Congress' pivotal concern over small, unsophisticated businesses--a category that manifestly excludes NWA--which might not recognize the sweep of the FLSA's coverage. Id. at 460-61. Equally important, Laffey I recognized the need for a liberal construction of remedial statutes, and at the same time appropriately took into account the absence of clear congressional intent to impose upon plaintiffs the heavy burden of demonstrating an employer's evil intent. Id. This latter point is especially important in light of the fact that the Equal Pay Act merely allows a plaintiff to recover, after an appropriate showing, wages which have been improperly denied, and does not involve the imposition of criminal sanctions. 60 In short, we find nothing compelling, and certainly nothing demonstrating clear error in this court's earlier opinion, in the 1965 sources relied upon by NWA. The careful analysis of the meaning of 29 U.S.C. Sec. 255(a) set out in Laffey I must stand.