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

Heading: Deference to the Secretary of Labor's Interpretation

Text: Deference to an agency's interpretation is owed only when the regulation at issue is ambiguous. See, e.g., Christensen v. Harris Cnty., 529 U.S. 576, 588, 120 S.Ct. 1655, 146 L.Ed.2d 621 (2000). The meaning of the first responder regulation, when juxtaposed with the text of the bona fide executive exemption and, in particular, with the definition of management under 29 C.F.R. § 541.102, is at best ambiguous. The City's own argument against the Secretary's interpretation highlights the ambiguity. The City notes that among the list of managerial tasks that are mentioned in the preamble to the 2004 revisions are directing operations at crime, fire or accident scenes, including deciding whether additional personnel or equipment is needed. Def. Supp. Br. at 5 (quoting 69 Fed. Reg. at 22130). At the same time, the first responder regulation qualifies those types of activities and deems them not to be management. See 29 C.F.R. § 541.3(b)(1). Moreover, plaintiffs in this case engage in types of activities that correspond with management as defined in 29 C.F.R. § 541.102  such as directing subordinates to canvas a certain area, positioning officers in the field for law enforcement operations, and guiding subordinates on proper police procedures, Mullins, 523 F.Supp.2d at 358 (footnote omitted)  and thus it is not entirely clear, for the purposes of the executive exemption, whether such activities should be considered exempt management tasks pursuant to section 541.102 or as non-exempt pursuant to section 541.3(b). Since the regulation is ambiguous, we turn to the Secretary's interpretation of it in her amicus brief. The Secretary's interpretation is entitled to controlling deference, even if articulated in an amicus brief, unless it is `plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation[s]' or there is any other `reason to suspect that the interpretation does not reflect the agency's fair and considered judgment on the matter in question.' See Talk Am., Inc., 131 S.Ct. at 2261 (quoting Chase Bank USA, N.A. v. McCoy, 562 U.S. ___, ___, 131 S.Ct. 871, 880, 178 L.Ed.2d 716 (2011)); Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke, 551 U.S. 158, 171, 127 S.Ct. 2339, 168 L.Ed.2d 54 (2007) (noting that where the DOL's interpretation of its own regulation reflects its considered views ... [,] we have accepted that interpretation as the agency's own, even if the agency set those views forth in a legal brief); Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 461, 117 S.Ct. 905, 137 L.Ed.2d 79 (1997) (affording deference to the Secretary's own interpretation of DOL regulation advanced in amicus brief). In Auer, the Supreme Court deferred to the then-Secretary of Labor's interpretation of his own regulation, and held that the fact the interpretation was contained in an amicus brief did not in the circumstances of this case, make it unworthy of deference. 519 U.S. at 462, 117 S.Ct. 905. The Supreme Court justified deference in that case by noting that [t]he Secretary's position is in no sense a `post hoc rationalizatio[n]' advanced by an agency seeking to defend past agency action against attack. Id. The Court further added that [t]here is simply no reason to suspect that the interpretation does not reflect the agency's fair and considered judgment on the matter in question. Id. A court's role in this circumstance is circumscribed. It is without authority to substitute its own independent interpretation of an agency's regulations for that of the agency. Applying these principles to this case and for the reasons set forth below, we find that the Secretary's interpretation is not plainly erroneous or inconsistent with her regulations and there is nothing to suggest that her interpretation reflects anything but the Secretary's fair and considered judgment on the matter in question. Her interpretation, therefore, warrants controlling Auer deference by this Court. See, e.g., Talk Am., Inc., 131 S.Ct. at 2261. Contrary to the City's position, the Secretary's interpretation does not exceed her statutory authority. Title 29, Section 213(a)(1) of the United States Code delegates authority to the Secretary to define[] and delimit[] the scope of the exemptions from the FLSA's overtime requirements, and the new Part 541 regulations were promulgated pursuant to the Secretary's delegated authority. See 69 Fed.Reg. at 22123-24. The Secretary's interpretation does not articulate an industry specific exception by separating out first responders for particular treatment, and even if it did, industry-specific exceptions are not precluded by the text of the statute. Based on Congress' express grant of authority, the Secretary established the scope of management by delimiting that term and excluding certain types of activities that are typically performed by police officers, firefighters, investigators and similar employees. 29 C.F.R. § 541.3(b). The regulation thus focuses on particular types of activities, which are performed generally by front-line responders, rather than on a particular industry. Even to the extent that the Secretary's regulation could be interpreted to treat first responders differently than workers in other industries, the Secretary's interpretation does not, as the City maintains, depend fundamentally on the location of those activities. That such activities occur in the field is not the dispositive element; the Secretary's reasoned justification is that such activities, when performed by first responders in the course of their front-line duties, do not involve the management of the enterprise in which the employee is employed, id. § 541.3(b)(2), and therefore should not be deemed management. The City argues that neither the plain language of the regulation nor the preamble supports the Secretary's interpretation of the first responder regulation as categorizing as non-exempt management activities undertaken in the field. The Secretary's interpretation does not, however, classify all activities if they are performed in the field as non-exempt regardless of whether they resemble management. Rather, the Secretary interprets the first responder regulation to mean that police officers' field law enforcement work is not exempt management work. DOL Amicus Br. at 4. The Secretary further explains that field law enforcement work does not become management simply because the police officer `directs the work of other employees' while performing such work. Id. at 5. The City claims that the Secretary interprets section 541.3(b)(2)'s example too broadly by construing directs to mean all management activities and conduct an investigation to mean in the field or in conjunction with law enforcement work. Def. Supp. Br. at 5. However, as the Secretary's controlling interpretation explains, the example provided in section 541.3(b)(2) simply illustrates the first responder regulation's essential principle: the performance of non-exempt field law enforcement work that involves supervision of other officers does not transform that non-exempt work into exempt management. DOL Amicus Br. at 5. The City's argument that the Secretary's interpretation of the first responder regulation is inconsistent with the other applicable Part 541 regulations because it eliminates the primary duties test with respect to all first responders rests on the erroneous assumption that if one officer supervises another officer in the course of performing law enforcement work, that officer may never qualify as an exempt executive. Def. Supp. Br. at 7. In the preamble, however, the DOL indicated that Federal courts have found high-level police and fire officials to be exempt executive or administrative employees only if, in addition to satisfying the other pertinent requirements, ... their primary duty is performing managerial tasks such as ... directing operations at crime, fire or accident scenes, including deciding whether additional personnel or equipment is needed. 69 Fed.Reg. at 22130. The Secretary further explains that [t]he cases identified in the preamble finding that high-level police officers were exempt executive employees involved the high-level direction of operations by fire chiefs and fire captains who generally did not engage in any front-line firefighting. DOL Amicus Br. at 5. Hence, the Secretary in her amicus curiae brief to the district court stated that [t]he types of managerial duties performed by some high-ranking police officers... reinforce the Secretary's position that front-line law enforcement, such as patrolling, firing taser guns, serving warrants, participating in and making arrests, investigating crimes, interviewing and interrogating witnesses, and securing crime scenes are front-line law enforcement activities that are not management tasks under section 541.3(b). Id. at 6 (quoting District Court Amicus Br. at 11) (emphasis omitted) (ellipsis in original); see also 29 C.F.R. § 553.216 ([H]igh ranking police officials who are in engaged in law enforcement activities, may also, depending on the facts, qualify for the section 13(a)(1) exemption as `executive' employees.). The Secretary does not, as a result, eliminate the primary duties test in her interpretation of the first responder regulation. While directing operations at crime, fire or accident scenes appears, at first blush, to be a type of management that sergeants undertake, when their supervisory activities are viewed within the context of the first responder regulation as interpreted by the Secretary, it becomes apparent that, because these activities form part of sergeants' primary field law enforcement duties, such supervision is not to be deemed management. See DOL Amicus Br. at 5. Even to the extent that the City identifies a tension between the text of the first responder regulation and the primary duties test, this is, at best, an ambiguity that does not preclude deference to the Secretary's interpretation. Addressing that ambiguity, the Secretary argues that certain managerial tasks such as directing operations at crime, fire or accident scenes when performed by high-level personnel who typically did not engage in any front-line activities would still be considered management. See DOL Amicus Br. at 5 (discussing preamble and cases). The Secretary's interpretation is consistent with both the text of the first responder regulation and the bona fide executive exemption and therefore far from clearly erroneous. Nor is the Secretary's interpretation a departure from earlier agency interpretations. The City argues that the preamble's discussion of Department of Labor v. City of Sapulpa, Oklahoma, 30 F.3d 1285, 1288 (10th Cir.1994), demonstrates that the Secretary has departed in its interpretation in its amicus brief from the interpretation provided in the preamble. In that case, the preamble noted, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's finding that department captains were not exempt executives because, inter alia, they were not in charge of most fire scenes and had no authority to call additional personnel to a fire scene. 69 Fed.Reg. at 22129. For the City, then, this suggests that a lack of authority in the field contributed to the captains' lack of exempt status. Def. Supp. Br. at 7. However, the Secretary's interpretation here is consistent with the Tenth Circuit's decision. There, the district court found that higher-ranking officers were more often than not the first to arrive at a fire scene and direct operations, and thus that particular management function could not be attributed to the captains. This is consistent with the Secretary's interpretation that the primary duties test still applies and that certain supervisory functions in the field, when not performed as part of an officer's primary field law enforcement duties, can still qualify as management. The Secretary's conclusion is also consistent with this Court's decision in Reich v. New York, 3 F.3d 581 (2d Cir.1993), overruled by implication on other grounds by Seminole Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996), which the DOL cited approvingly in the preamble. See 69 Fed.Reg. at 22129. In Reich, this Court affirmed the lower court's ruling that investigators who conducted criminal investigations and supervised state troopers' investigations were not engaged in exempt administrative activity. 3 F.3d at 587-88. As the preamble acknowledged, this Court held that their primary duty was investigation, not administering the affairs of the department itself. 69 Fed.Reg. at 22129. Although the administrative exemption is not at issue in this case, the first responder regulation addressed the scope of the section 13(a)(1) exemptions generally, and thus Reich provides additional support for the claim that the Secretary has not departed in her current interpretation of the first responder regulation from previous agency interpretations. Accordingly, we conclude that the Secretary's interpretation of the first responder regulation, in relationship to the bona fide executive exemption, is neither plainly erroneous nor inconsistent with her own regulations or previous interpretations thereof, and thus is entitled to controlling deference by this Court.