Opinion ID: 754732
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Concern Regarding Plaintiff's Claims

Text: 29 Once the district court ruled that time spent feeding, grooming, training, exercising, and otherwise caring for Bandit could be compensable, whether Officer Holzapfel actually engaged in such work and how much compensable time he spent on those compensable activities were questions of fact for the jury. 30 An uncritical application of the definition of work, set forth in the preceding section, might lead one to believe that Officer Holzapfel should receive overtime pay for all the hours he testified to having devoted to Bandit's well-being, since we had said in New York City Transit Auth. that true dog-care work is compensable. See 45 F.3d at 651. Yet common sense and policy concerns argue against such a result. At some point, an officer's attention to his assigned dog may not be provided primarily for the employer's benefit but rather out of the caretaker's own sense of love and devotion to the animal in his charge. Cf. Rudolph, 103 F.3d at 684 (Any time beyond the half-hour [provided in a compensation agreement] plaintiffs spent with their canine charges we presume stemmed from their personal devotion to the dogs, and was, therefore, not 'predominantly for the benefit of the employer'....).