Opinion ID: 2521697
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiffs' Claims for April 19, 2001 to August 23, 2004

Text: Although the Secretary interpreted this Court's questions in the order inviting amicus briefing to refer solely to the period postdating August 23, 2004, and therefore did not directly address the period beginning April 19, 2001, see DOL Amicus Br. at 2 n. 2, the Secretary's views nevertheless inform our analysis of the plaintiffs' primary duty under the previous regulation. We therefore also hold that, for this time period, the City has failed to carry its burden of demonstrating that plaintiffs satisfy the bona fide executive exemption from the FLSA's overtime pay requirements. The DOL indicated in the preamble that the new Part 541 regulations were intended to clarify the existing regulations in effect. 69 Fed.Reg. at 22125. The preamble indicates that the revisions were necessary to restore the overtime protections intended by the FLSA which have eroded over the decades, id. at 22122, and were designed to clarify and better organize the regulations defining and delimiting the exemptions for administrative, executive and professional employees. Rather than broadening the exemptions, the final rule will enhance understanding of the boundaries and demarcations of the exemptions Congress created. The final rule will protect more employees from being misclassified.... Id. at 22125. In this regard, we agree with plaintiffs that the DOL intended simply to clarify the manner in which the exemptions were always meant to be applied to such first responders. Pls. Supp. Br. at 8. In the preamble, the DOL cited cases in which police officers and other first responders had been held to be non-exempt and indicated that it ha[d] no intention of departing from this established case law. 69 Fed.Reg. at 22129. The DOL's agreement with the holdings of those prior cases suggests that the interpretation advanced by the Secretary under the current regulation applies with equal force to the previous version of the executive exemption. [4] Plaintiffs point out that 29 C.F.R. § 541.3(b)'s clarification that a police officer is not exempt merely because [he] directs the work of other employees is also consistent with prior case law in which plaintiffs had supervisory duties in addition to their primary duties of field law enforcement. Pls. Supp. Br. at 10. As the Secretary notes, the sergeants' direction of police officers is done in conjunction with their performance of field law enforcement work.... [T]he fact that the sergeants direct police officers while they perform field law enforcement activities does not transform the field law enforcement into management. DOL Amicus Br. at 9-10. We therefore see no reason to depart from the preceding analysis as applied to plaintiffs' performance of their duties under the previous version of the regulation. The City nevertheless argues that, under the new regulation, one of the factors listed as pertinent to the primary duty analysis is relative freedom from supervision, which is virtually synonymous with discretion, and discretion therefore remains a relevant factor. Def. Br. at 46 (citing 29 C.F.R. § 541.700(a)). Although the previous regulation explicitly included discretion among the factors relevant to the primary duty inquiry, see 29 C.F.R. 541.1(d) (2003) (whether employee customarily and regularly exercises discretionary powers), we indicated, supra at 119 & n. 3, that this factor formed part of the long test, not the short test applicable to plaintiffs, and furthermore, plaintiffs do not have discretion to determine when they perform non-exempt duties; instead, the majority of plaintiffs' discretion is exercised in the performance of their field law enforcement duties. See Mullins, 523 F.Supp.2d at 358 (noting that plaintiffs ... exercise discretion and make significant decisions based on their judgment while in the field); 29 C.F.R. § 541.106(a). It is also relevant to note that, in reaching the conclusion that sergeants' direction of subordinate police officers was not management, the Secretary's analysis did not rely on plaintiffs' relative freedom from supervision. Assuming, arguendo, that we were to equate discretion with relative freedom from supervision, our analysis would not be different. Given that the new regulations were designed to be consistent with the previous ones, it follows that any discretion exercised by plaintiffs in their supervision of police officers' field law enforcement duties does not render such supervision management for the purposes of the FLSA executive exemption. In light of the controlling deference we have given to the Secretary's interpretation of the first responder regulation, we do not interpret the previous regulations to indicate that any discretion inherent in sergeants' supervision of police officers while performing law enforcement duties transforms that supervision into management. Plaintiffs are therefore entitled to the overtime pay protections of the FLSA for their claims covering this time period.