Opinion ID: 744609
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: District Court's Damage Award.

Text: 46 SNET next challenges the district court's calculation of damages as excessive because it encompassed substantial amounts of time during which outside craft workers were engaged in installation and maintenance (I & M) work--work which the parties agreed by stipulation would be excluded from the award. See Joint Appendix, Vol. I, at 270. SNET attributes this overassessment to the court's erroneous exclusion of evidence the company proffered which, the company contends, would have enabled the court to exclude from the damage calculation certain I & M work performed by outside craft workers during the relevant time period of October 1991 until April 1994. We need not consider SNET's contention that the district court committed reversible evidentiary error in failing to admit their evidence because in our view it makes no difference. Regardless of the district court's decision on this matter, its calculation of damages was proper. 47 It is well-settled that when an employer fails to keep adequate records of its employees' compensable work periods, as required under the FLSA, employees seeking recovery for overdue wages will not be penalized due to their employer's record-keeping default. See Mt. Clemens, 328 U.S. at 687, 66 S.Ct. at 1192. See also Brock v. Norman's Country Market, Inc., 835 F.2d 823, 828 (11th Cir.1988). A rule preventing employees from recovering for uncompensated work because they are unable to determine precisely the amount due would result in rewarding employers for violating federal law. Mt. Clemens, 328 U.S. at 687, 66 S.Ct. at 1192. Rather, in such cases, employees need only prove that they performed work for which they were not properly compensated and produce sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference. Id. Upon meeting this evidentiary threshold, the fact of damage is established, and the only potential uncertainty is in the amount. See Brock v. Seto, 790 F.2d 1446, 1448 (9th Cir.1986). At this point, the burden shifts to the employer to come forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to negative the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee's evidence. Mt. Clemens, 328 U.S. at 687-88, 66 S.Ct. at 1192-93. Should the employer fail to produce such evidence, the court may award damages, even though the result is only approximate. Id. at 688, 66 S.Ct. at 1192-93. 48 Through the use of representational evidence, the Secretary met his burden of establishing that outside craft workers, including the majority of those in the CFT job classification, were entitled to back pay. However, both parties stipulated that certain aspects of I & M work, encompassed in the CFT classification (that is, I & M work performed in residential homes or businesses), were not compensable. See Joint Appendix, Vol. I, at 270. The Secretary adduced evidence, for the purpose of calculating damages, which treated the CFT classification as a whole, thereby including I & M work in the class of compensable employment. A week into trial, SNET countered by proffering evidence in the form of a lengthy table that purported to break down the CFT job classification into the three job functions (cable splicing, cable repair, and installation and maintenance) to which those individuals in CFT classification were primarily assigned during a given week. The district court excluded this summary, which SNET contends would have led the district court to remove I & M workers from the damage calculation. 49 However, SNET conceded in its post-trial motions and its briefs before this court, see Memorandum in Support of Defendant's Motion to Amend Judgment at 13 n.5, Brief on Behalf of Defendants-Appellants at 37 n.25, that all those employees in the now defunct CFT job category (cable splicers, cable repair workers, and I & M workers), were trained to perform, and from time to time did perform, each of the three tasks encompassed in that job category. Since workers who were designated to perform I & M work were also called upon at times to perform cable splicing and cable repair tasks, both of which were compensable, the evidence offered by SNET was under-inclusive. In leaving out I & M workers, it failed to account for all workers performing cable splicing and cable repair. On the other hand, the evidence of damages offered by the Secretary was, to some extent, over-inclusive, because it included I & M work performed inside residential houses and businesses by those in the CFT category. Thus, the district court was forced to choose between the two. In opting for that proffered by the Secretary, the district court--consistent with the lesson of Mt. Clemens--placed the burden of inadequate record keeping on the employer. The district court did not err in this regard. 3 50