Court Opinion

ID: 9479671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:25:06.350184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:11.631348
License: Public Domain

GARWOOD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Here, while “on call,” appellant was subject to no restrictions except that he be callable by pager, be able to arrive at his employer’s premises within, in his words, "approximately twenty minutes,” and be in physical and mental condition sufficient to perform his job on arrival.* It is *1065undisputed during this time appellant “could visit friends, entertain guests, sleep, watch television, do laundry,” and the like. See Halferty v. Pulse Drug Co., Inc., 864 F.2d 1185, 1189 (5th Cir.1989). Plainly, during appellant’s on call time he was much less restricted than were the employees in Rousseau v. Teledyne Movible Offshore, Inc., 805 F.2d 1245 (5th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 827, 108 S.Ct. 95, 98 L.Ed.2d 56 (1987), and Allen v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 724 F.2d 1131 (5th Cir.1984), where we held that the on call time was not to be considered for overtime purposes. We reaffirmed these decisions in Brock v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 826 F.2d 369, 373-74 (5th Cir.1987), where we reversed and rendered a district court’s finding that the on call time was to be considered for overtime purposes. Moreover, the amount of freedom which the appellant had during his on call time here is comparable to that of the employees in Pilkenton v. Appalachian Regional Hospitals, Inc., 336 F.Supp. 334, 336 (W.D.Va.1971), and Norton v. Northern Van Service, Inc., 839 F.2d 653, 655-56 (10th Cir.1988), where the time in question was held not countable for overtime purposes. We cited Pilkenton and Norton with approval in Halferty. Id., 864 F.2d at 1190.
The majority does not really quarrel with this analysis, and, at least inferentially, concedes that for any given hour, day, or week of on call time appellant was as free to use the time for his own purposes as were the employees in the above-cited cases. However, the majority distinguishes those cases because appellant remained in an on call status for the entire period from February 1982 through January 1983. That, it seems to me, is irrelevant to his entitlement to overtime compensation. The threshold question is the nature of what appellant was free to do while he was on call, not how long he was on call. It seems to me that we expressly recognized this in Brock, where we refused to distinguish Allen on the ground that the twelve-hour off-shift waiting time (the other twelve hours in each day being working time), when the employees had to remain on the plant premises, “lasted only three months.” We said that was “irrelevant.” Brock, 826 F.2d at 374. The majority’s attempt to say that this language in Brock means something else is wholly unconvincing to me.
It is true that the lengthy duration of appellant’s on call status was calculated to make his job one that most of us might well find quite oppressive. But the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act are more narrowly focused than being simply directed at discouraging or requiring extra compensation for oppressive conditions of employment. A Texan working 8:30 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, at a remote location in the Alaskan wilderness, has what one must suppose is a most restrictive and oppressive job, which as a practicad matter prevents, among other things, vacations, visiting relatives, and attending major league sporting events. But none of those circumstances call into play the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Such provisions, 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1), require overtime compensation for, and only for, hours worked in excess of forty during a given workweek. It would seem to necessarily follow that each week stands on its own bottom, and that what one did in the preceding week, or in the following week, is irrelevant to whether one worked in excess of forty hours during the week in question. Similarly, the freedom that the employee has during his on call time throughout, for example, the first week in September is in no way affected by whether he was on call the last week of August or will be on call the second week of September.
We have held that employees who were (when not actively engaged in their regular vkork) “on call” throughout an entire week or an entire three-month period and accord*1066ingly required to at all times remain on their employer’s premises were nevertheless not entitled to have such on call time considered for overtime purposes. Rousseau; Allen. Given the workweek structure of section 207(a)(1), it appears to me that the majority’s holding here is necessarily inconsistent with those decisions. Nor does the majority cite any cases supporting the result which it reaches here or its novel theory that it is not the employee’s freedom during the time that he is on call which counts, but that rather the longer the employee is on call the more likely is it that all the “on call” time will be considered work time. I therefore respectfully dissent.

 Indeed, it appears undisputed that appellant was able to live in a county adjoining that where his *1065employer’s place of business was located and approximately seventeen miles away from it.
Also, it was clearly agreed between appellant and his employer that he was not working for his employer during, and would not be compensated by his employer for, on call time, though he was fully compensated whenever he actually was called.