Court Opinion

ID: 9546772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:35:12.050542+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:50.511682
License: Public Domain

Herd, J.,
dissenting: I disagree with the majority opinion. I believe the district court was correct in its finding that K.A.R. 1-5-26 applied only to employees subject to emergency duty. I would construe this to mean highway maintenance personnel, law enforcement officers, and firemen. Those employees’ job descriptions include their potential emergency duties. They thus have accepted their employment with that understanding and could be said to have inferentially agreed to it.
Such is not the case here. The plaintiffs are petroleum industry regulatory technicians and environmental technicians. Their jobs are not normally subject to emergency duties. Their job descriptions do not include the extra duties here imposed upon *80them. They have not consented to the additional duties. Under these circumstances, when a governmental employer unilaterally imposes standby telephone duties upon an employee for the benefit of the public, the public should pay for that service at a reasonable rate of pay. One dollar per hour is not a reasonable rate of pay.
The majority is requiring plaintiffs to make a donation of their time and services to the public. I would pay plaintiffs time and a half for their overtime, pursuant to K.A.R. 1-5-24.
Lockett, J., joins the foregoing dissent.