Opinion ID: 413383
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: 12 We do not find a direct answer to the question of whether the Sec. 5373 pay cap applies to government mariners whose pay is set in accordance with the prevailing rate provisions of Sec. 5348 in the statutory language, legislative history, or case law. Instead, our conclusion that Sec. 5373's pay limitation governs the mariners is rooted in a mix of all three sources of authority. We reach this result through a three-step process. First, to determine whether Congress probably intended the 1964 pay limitation to extend to the mariners' existing and separate pay statute, we review the legislative history of both statutes in the context of contemporaneous changes in the overall federal pay system. Second, since the cap applies to pay fix[ed] by administrative action, Sec. 5373 (emphasis added), we must examine what Congress has, over time, considered this phrase to mean--to determine if the meaning includes the mariners' pay system. For this analysis, we turn to two sources: references to administrative pay-setting during Congress' 1972 overhaul of the prevailing wage rate system (which included the reenactment of the mariners' pay statute); and Congress' use of the term administrative action at other times to refer to prevailing wage rate systems like the mariners' pay statute. Third, we review judicial interpretations of the statutes establishing both the general prevailing wage rate system and the mariners' prevailing rate system to determine whether they have classified the type of pay-setting discretion involved in Sec. 5348 as administrative, as opposed to statutory action. In addition, we examine but reject the MM & P's arguments that summary judgment was inappropriate on the record before the district court. 13