Opinion ID: 2966470
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: For court attendance during off duty hours.

Text: J.A. 53-54 (emphasis added). Under this policy, if overtime is paid for all hours worked in excess of a set threshold, the only reasonable inference is that the salary paid to the officers compensated them for all hours worked up to that overtime threshold. The Chesterfield County Police Department's Human Resources Administrator, John McLenagen, presented an affidavit in which he stated: 20 2. Patrol officers are classified as salaried employees by the County. All advertisements to the general public for openings with the Police Department state that the position is compensated on an annual salary. 3. During the initial screening and up through a candidate[']s offer of employement [sic], applicants are told of the compensation in terms of an annual salary. McLenagen Aff. ¶¶ 2-3, J.A. 58. Attached to McLenagen's affidavit are copies of five separate classified ads from 1992 to 1995, all of which advertise openings in the County Police Department, solicit applicants and describe the benefits of and qualifications for the jobs. In each ad, the compensation is listed in terms of an annual salary ranging from $23,455 to $24,628. McLenagen's affidavit provides support to the proposition that any applicant responding to the advertisements knew or should have known that the County police officer position was a salaried position. In spite of this evidence, Appellees repeatedly claim that the County never specifically told them the number of hours for which their salary was intended to compensate. For example, Appellees' Brief states: Advertisements for the hiring of officers state that newly hired officers receive an annual salary . . . . However, nowhere in either the advertisements for the position of patrol officer or in the County's Compensation and Classification Plan (which establish salary ranges for given positions) is there any mention of the number of hours to which the salary corresponds. Further, the policy which calls for overtime when an officer works beyond 146.6 hours does not state that an officer's salary fully compensates him or her up to the overtime threshold. The County has no collective bargaining agreement or contract or other agreement with the plaintiffs pertaining to this issue. Similarly, there is no statute or other law governing the number of hours the annual compensation covers. 21 Brief of Appellees at 9. We do not put much weight in nor find such no one told us claims very persuasive.11 Even if parties never expressly agree to the terms of employment, an agreement can easily be implied from their conduct. Zolteck v. Safelite Glass Corp., 884 F. Supp. 283, 286 (N.D. Ill. 1995). Where the parties' actions and the circumstances demonstrate that the plaintiff was aware of a particular condition of employment, the employee's acceptance of, and continued, employment manifests acceptance of the condition. However, if the employee contemporaneously protests, there is no implied agreement to the condition. Id. at 286 (citations omitted) (citing Bodie v. City of Columbia, S.C., 934 F.2d 561, 566 (4th Cir. 1991), and Johnson v. City of Columbia, S.C., 949 F.2d 127, 131 (4th Cir. 1991)). Although there were no written contracts between the officers and the County, there clearly existed an employment agreement. Further, we do not believe that there needs to be any written contract, state law, regulation or statute, nor any collective bargaining agreement to reveal what is obvious from the terms of the written County Policy in addition to the parties' conduct. The County hired and consistently paid the officers a salary and told them the hourly threshold during the work cycle that they would begin receiving overtime. The officers knew their compensation in terms of an annual salary, they accepted a biweekly check for the same non-fluctuating base amount every two weeks, they repeatedly worked hours above and below the normally scheduled 135 hours per pay cycle, and they were always paid overtime after 147 hours. We believe that the well-educated and intelligent men and women serving as law enforcement officers today, including those in Chesterfield County, are clearly capable of comprehending the mate_________________________________________________________________ 11 Similarly, if the employer contends the annual salary compensates its employee for all hours up to the overtime threshold while the employee claims the salary compensates only for a lower amount of regularly scheduled hours, we would find not too persuasive claims by employees that no one told them that the hours in the gap were not compensable because obviously the employer would never make such a statement because the employer understood those gap hours to be compensated under the terms of the contract. See Arnold, 910 F. Supp. at 1394 & n.45. 22 rial terms of their employment. Further, we do not find that the FLSA places the burden on the employer to hold an employee's hand and specifically tell him or her that the salary fully compensates him or her up to the overtime threshold, if that fact can be easily gleaned from employment policies, practices, and procedures. 12 Looking to the hourly pay system the County utilized, it complied with the applicable labor regulations and was even financially beneficial to the officers in numerous respects. The labor regulation that lists the maximum hours for work periods for law enforcement officers states: (b) For those employees engaged in law enforcement activities (including security personnel in correctional institutions) who have a work period of at least 7 but less than 28 consecutive days, no overtime compensation is required under section 7(k) until the number of hours worked exceeds the number of hours which bears the same relationship to 171 as the number of days in the work period bears to 28. .... Maximum hours standards Work period(days) Law enforcement 28 171 27 165 26 159 25 153 24 147 _________________________________________________________________ 12 We recognize that there is somewhat of a heightened burden placed on an employer utilizing the fluctuating workweek method of payment to demonstrate a clear mutual understanding of the parties that the fixed salary is compensation (apart from overtime premiums) for the hours worked each workweek, whatever their number. . . . 29 C.F.R. § 778.114. However, we believe that in absence of a written contract, an employer can also demonstrate the existence of this clear mutual understanding from employment policies, practices, and procedures. See infra Part VI. 23 29 C.F.R. § 553.230 (emphasis added). The County complied with this regulation by paying the officers overtime for all hours worked in excess of 147 in each 24-day cycle. Not only did it pay the officers when they exceeded this threshold, the County also paid the officers overtime or premium pay for all off-duty court appearances, call backs, extra shifts and special assignments even if the officers had not exceeded the overtime threshold during the pay cycle.13 For example, in the Summary of Time Accounting Information of Plaintiff Tim Morton, provided to the district court, which tracks the employment hours of Plaintiff Morton for the eighteen pay cycles between March 1, 1992 and August 29, 1994, Morton never worked regularly scheduled hours in excess of 147 hours in any pay period, but was paid overtime in every pay cycle. J.A. 67. In fact, Morton worked an average of 131 regular hours per pay cycle, but also was paid approximately 27 overtime hours per cycle. As Defendant notes with respect to the hours listed in the overtime column of Morton's chart: The word overtime is a misnomer and does not cor- rectly describe the hours noted in this column. All patrol officers receive the premium rate for these hours worked regardless of the number of total actual hours worked in the FLSA cycle. Thus, literally, hours in this column are not overtime within the meaning of the FLSA. These premium hours in this case would be likely Court time and call back time. J.A. 67 n.1. In spite of the County's compliance with the maximum hour mandates of the FLSA, Plaintiffs contend in Claim 1 that because the _________________________________________________________________ 13 In light of this payment policy, we find it rather petty that part of the basis of Plaintiff Monahan's straight time claim as stated in his affidavit is the County's failure to pay him for the time it takes him to put gas in his patrol car prior to roll call in addition to the time it takes to go to the property room to recover physical evidence prior to court appearances for which the County pays him time and a half to attend. See supra note 4. Surely, this is not the evil of overwork and underpay that the FLSA was intended to remedy. 24 County regularly scheduled them for 135 hours per cycle, instead of the 147 maximum allowed, their salary only compensated them for those 135 hours and that they are therefore due the gap compensation when overtime hours were worked. This argument seems counterintuitive and rather absurd for several reasons. First, if the County had scheduled the officers for all hours up to the 147 hour threshold per cycle, Plaintiffs would not be before us today because there would be no gap time issue, but the officers would be working three to twelve more hours per pay cycle14 and approximately 135 more hours per year for the same salary amount. Additionally, if the County did not have the policy that provided that the officers always receive premium pay for special appearances, court time, and call back time regardless of their normally scheduled hours, but rather had insisted that the first three to twelve hours of such non-regularly scheduled work backfill the gap, Plaintiffs would not have any proposed FLSA straight time claim because again there would be no gap time issue and no minimum wage/maximum hour violation. Finally, accepting Appellees' contention would mean that any time a government employer, attempting to balance budgetary constraints with FLSA compliance, adjusts or reduces the hours its police officers work in a given pay cycle, the employer would face an FLSA straight time claim. This would be true even if the employer has not violated the law's minimum wage/maximum hour mandates. Such a proposition would leave an employer little, if any, flexibility before it is subject to being haled into court to face a purported FLSA claim. Not only did the County comply with the FLSA's maximum hour mandates, but it also complied with its minimum wage and overtime calculation provisions. The County paid the officers a salary that converted to a regular hourly rate well in excess of the statutory minimum wage. From 1991 to 1994, the converted hourly wage of Plaintiffs varied between $10.01 per hour and $16.09 per hour. Powers' Aff., J.A. 32. The County's method of determining the overtime or premium rate paid to the officers did not violate any regulations nor interpretations.15 To determine the overtime rate, an _________________________________________________________________ 14 Depending on whether the officers were working a 135 or 144 hour cycle. 15 Appellees note that the County's calculation of the regular rate involved a technical mis-application of the FLSA regular rate rules, 25 employer must ultimately convert a salaried employee's annual pay to a regular hourly rate, which is then used as a base to calculate the 150% overtime or premium rate. See 29 C.F.R.§ 778.113. To make this determination, the County utilized a base of 2,080 hours per year, a figure that conveniently corresponds to 40 hours per week, and the County divided the officers' annual salary by the 2,080 divisor. The County claimed that it uniformly used the 2,080 hour divisor to calculate the regular rate for all salaried employees Countywide except for Chesterfield County firefighters. Vaughn Aff.¶ 5, J.A. 65. Again, the officers put forth an argument that is contrary to their best financial interests in attacking the County's calculation of their overtime rate. They implicitly argue that the County should have used a higher divisor equal to the annual number of 2,234 threshold hours.16 However, use of such higher number of annual threshold hours would have resulted ultimately in their being paid approximately 7% less for overtime hours.17 Plaintiffs contend, and the lower court apparently agreed, that the County's use of the 2,080 hour divisor evidenced an inference that the County intended the annual salaries to compensate the officers for approximately 139 hours per cycle, which is less than the threshold number of hours. Order at 3 n.2 (citing 29 C.F.R. § 778.113(a)), J.A. 92. _________________________________________________________________ but recognize that the calculation method the County used was more financially beneficial to the officers. Therefore, Appellees state they do not raise this issue as a violation of the FLSA. Brief of Appellees at nn.1 & 4; see 29 C.F.R. § 778.113(b). The absurdity of Appellees argument here is demonstrated by the fact that plaintiff employees in other FLSA actions have argued for the exact same favorable method of overtime rate calculation used by Chesterfield County. See Arnold, 910 F. Supp. at 1395. We believe that any technical mis-application that results in additional income to employees above the minimum required is no violation of the law. See infra note 17. 16 Assuming a 24-day cycle, this number represents the product of 15.2 cycles multiplied by the overtime threshold of 147. 17 For example, assuming the officer is hired with an annual salary of $23,455. Using 2,080 hours per year, the regular rate would be $11.28 per hour and the corresponding overtime rate would be $16.91 per overtime hour. Using 2,234 hours per year, the same salary would equate to a regular rate of $10.50 per hour with a lower overtime rate of $15.75 per hour. 26 We think manipulating the math to create such an inference is a stretch at best. More plausible and quite logical is that the County used the base number of 2,080 hours per year because this number reflects an employee working 40 hours of straight time per week and the FLSA is based on an overtime compensation scheme for hours worked in excess of 40 per week. We note other municipalities have used the 2,080 hour divisor without impunity under similar circumstances. See e.g., Schmitt II, 864 F. Supp. at 1055, 1057 & nn.8-9. Therefore, we do not believe that use of the 2,080 divisor was in any way violative of the law nor could rationally lead to an adverse inference that the agreed upon salary was intended to compensate the officers for an amount of hours below the threshold. In deciding Plaintiffs were due straight time compensation for Claim 1 overtime gap time hours, the district court also relied on 29 C.F.R. § 778.317, which specifically addressesAgreements not to pay for certain nonovertime hours. There is no evidence in the record that leads us to believe that this interpretation even applies. The interpretation states: An agreement not to compensate employees for certain nonovertime hours stands on no better footing since it would have the same effect of diminishing the employee's total overtime compensation. An agreement, for example, to pay an employee whose maximum hours standard for the particular workweek is 40 hours, $5 an hour for the first 35 hours, nothing for the hours between 35 and 40 and $7.50 an hour for the hours in excess of 40 would not meet the overtime requirements of the Act. Under the principles set forth in §778.315, the employee would have to be paid $25 for the 5 hours worked between 35 and 40 before any sums ostensibly paid for overtime could be credited toward overtime compensation due under the Act. Unless the employee is first paid $5 for each nonovertime hour worked, the $7.50 per hour payment purportedly for overtime hours is not in fact an overtime payment. 29 C.F.R. § 778.317. In this case, we find no express or implied agreement not to compensate the officers for the gap hours. Rather, the County's contention that the agreement was that the salary com27 pensated the officers for all hours worked up to the threshold is fully supported by the record. The fact that the officers were regularly scheduled for less than the threshold does not indicate that there was any agreement not to compensate them for the gap hours, but instead is more likely indicative of County policy not to schedule them for all hours for which they were already being compensated thereby providing a three to twelve hour buffer per cycle before overtime compensation must be paid. Payment plans that comply with the FLSA, but yet are designed with the flexibility inherent to the law enforcement exemption to explicitly avoid the incurment of overtime hours are not unlawful. Adams v. City of McMinnville , 890 F.2d 836, 83940 (6th Cir. 1989) (finding lawful a reduction in firefighters' work hours to avoid payment of overtime made in response to legitimate budgetary restraints). But see Walling v. Helmerich & Payne, 323 U.S. 37, 42 (1944) (finding unlawful sham changes in employment scheduling and wages made simply to avoid the FLSA's mandates). The FLSA guarantees that premium compensation will be paid to employees who work overtime hours. But it does not guarantee employees that they will be able to work overtime hours in order to receive premium pay. Id. at 840; see Blackie v. State of Maine, 75 F.3d 716, 723 (1st Cir. 1996); York v. City of Wichita Falls, 48 F.3d 919, 920-21 (5th Cir. 1995). Section 207k gives employers of fire protection and law enforcement personnel greater leeway in structuring wage and time calculations. Lamon II, 972 F.2d at 1153. The lower court also indicated, by citation only, a reliance on 29 C.F.R. § 778.322 which addresses Reducing the fixed workweek for which a salary is paid. Order at 7, J.A. 96. Again, we find that this interpretation provides Plaintiffs no support, because there is no evidence to indicate that there was any understanding of the parties that Plaintiffs' work schedule was reduced from one fixed hourly work cycle to another fixed hourly work cycle. Section 778.322 in part states: If an employee whose maximum hours standard is 40 hours was hired at a salary of $200 for a fixed workweek of 40 hours, his regular rate at the time of hiring was $5 per hour. If his workweek is later reduced to a fixed workweek of 35 hours while his salary remains the same, it is the fact that it now takes him only 35 hours to earn $200, so that he 28 earns his salary at the average rate of $5.71 per hour. His regular rate thus becomes $5.71 per hour; it is no longer $5 an hour. Overtime pay is due under the Act only for hours worked in excess of 40, not 35, but if the understanding of the parties is that the salary of $200 now covers 35 hours of work and no more, the employee would be owed $5.71 per hour under his employment contract for each hour worked between 35 and 40. He would be owed not less than one and one-half times $5.71 ($8.57) per hour, under the statute, for each hour worked in excess of 40 in the workweek. In weeks in which no overtime is worked only the provisions of section 6 of the Act, requiring the payment of not less than the applicable minimum wage for each hour worked, apply so that the employee's right to receive $5.71 per hour is enforceable only under his contract. However, in overtime weeks the Administrator has the duty to insure the payment of at least one and one-half times the employee's regular rate of pay for hours worked in excess of 40 and this overtime compensation cannot be said to have been paid until all straight time compensation due the employee under the statute or his employment contract has been paid. Thus if the employee works 41 hours in a particular week, he is owed his salary for 35 hours--$200, 5 hours' pay at $5.71 per hour for the 5 hours between 35 and 40--$28.55, and 1 hour's pay at $8.57 for the 1 hour in excess of 40--$8.57, or a total of $237.12 for the week. 29 C.F.R. § 778.322 (emphasis added). There is no evidence in the record indicating that the officers were hired for any fixed hourly work period18 nor that there was any understanding by the parties that the officers' hours were reduced to another fixed work period. Although Plaintiffs were regularly scheduled to work 135 hours during the 24-day cycle, the hours actually worked more often than not varied above and below 135 hours. See J.A. 67.19 Because there is no evidence that there was any kind _________________________________________________________________ 18 See 29 C.F.R. § 553.233. 19 In their Brief, even Appellees recognize there was no fixed schedule and state that the individual officers' actual work hours often vary above the scheduled hours . . . . Brief of Appellees at 8. 29 of understanding by the parties to reduce the terms of employment from one fixed hourly amount to another fixed hourly amount, this aspect of the interpretation does not apply. On the other hand, this interpretation clearly supports the County's position with respect to Claim 2. It states: In weeks in which no overtime is worked only the provisions of section 6 of the Act, requiring the payment of not less than the applicable minimum wage for each hour worked, apply so that the employee's right to receive $5.71 per hour is enforceable only under his contract. Id.; see Schmitt I, 844 F. Supp. at 1459 n.11; Schmitt II, 864 F. Supp. at 1062. Therefore, section 778.322 again reinforces the premise that the court must know the terms of a person's employment agreement before making any overtime determinations under the FLSA. Additionally, it clearly states that absent an overtime or minimum wage violation, an employee's gap time claim is not cognizable under the FLSA. Having concluded that summary judgment for Plaintiffs on Claim 1 overtime gap time was inappropriate, we find that summary judgment should be granted instead for the County. The evidence of the employment agreements leads to only one rational conclusion - that Plaintiffs were properly paid an annual salary to which they either expressly or impliedly agreed and they worked under an employment agreement which in no way violated the FLSA.20 For all Plaintiffs, whether hired before or after the June 1, 1990 Policy, even in the absence of a written contract, an employment agreement existed based upon the County's written policy and more importantly the _________________________________________________________________ 20 Again, although Appellees represent that they might not have clearly understood the number of hours for which their salary compensated them, we believe that if the officers accepted a salaried position and knew that they would be paid overtime when they exceeded 147 hours of work in a 24-day cycle, the only logical conclusion is that their salaries compensated them for all hours worked prior to the 147 hour threshold. More likely than not, the number of hours the officers were employed to work was a material term of their employment agreement. It is difficult to believe that the officers would blindly accept these positions unaware of the hours they would be expected to work or can now claim they were unaware of those hours in spite of their continued and repeated acceptance of paychecks under the same scheduling cycle. See Harrison v. City of Clarksville, Tenn., 732 F. Supp. 810, 815 (M.D. Tenn. 1990). 30 employees' continual and repeated acceptance of their paychecks without objection under the 24-day/147 hour pay cycle. See Bodie v. City of Columbia, 934 F.2d 561, 564-65 (4th Cir. 1991) ([C]ontinuance in the job and acceptance under the new plan of payment was sufficient to create a valid agreement, even though the agreement was implied and not in writing) (citing Rouseau v. Teledyne Movible Offshore, Inc., 805 F.2d 1245 (5th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 827 (1987); Rotondo v. City of Georgetown, S.C. 869 F. Supp. 369, 376-77 (D.S.C. 1994) (citing Harrison v. City of Clarksville, Tenn., 732 F. Supp. 810, 815 (M.D. Tenn. 1990)). [W]e will also not allow employees merely to grumble about the compensation scheme and then later spring a surprise attack on an employer who has tried to comply with the options that the FLSA provides. Holb v. City of Beaufort, Nos. 91-2068, 92-1427, slip op., 1993 WL 219806 at  (4th Cir. June 22, 1993) (unpublished opinion, full text available on Westlaw) (citing Bodie, 934 F.2d at 564). Any dispute between these two parties about the number of hours for which the employees' salary was intended to compensate them is not cognizable under the FLSA, but instead should be pursued under state contract law.