Court Opinion

ID: 6925981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 23:20:59.031353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:55.918531
License: Public Domain

WHITAKER, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
The 1954 amendment to the overtime Act gives the Department head authority to pay premium compensation for overtime work on an annual basis. The Department head in these cases decided that the situation in the San Francisco and Omaha offices did not warrant authorizing this premium pay on an annual basis; *971hence, it seems to me to follow that, so far as these employees were concerned, the amendment made by the 1954 Act was inapplicable to them, and that their rights are governed by the prior Act, to wit, the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945, 59 Stat. 295.
I agree that the overtime worked by the plaintiffs in these cases was induced by those having authority to do so and that this is equivalent to their having been ordered to do so when the occasion demanded. However, the purpose of the statutory requirement that overtime was allowable only when it was “officially ordered or approved,” was to repose discretion for the determination of the necessity for the overtime work on an authorized official and not to leave it to the employee’s own discretion. In order for plaintiffs to recover I think it is necessary to show that one of two things happened, either that an authorized officei', not generally ordered overtime, but ordered it in each particular case; or, if he did not order it, that he thereafter approved it.
As I said in the beginning, there is no doubt about the fact that employees were induced to work overtime when the situation demanded it. But I think it was still necessary for an authorized person to give his stamp of approval to the fact that the particular situation in each case demanded the overtime work.
It seems to me that this requirement has been met. When the individual investigator filed his report, showing overtime worked, and this was approved by his supervisor, and these reports were sent to the office of the person who had the authority to order or approve overtime, and this official took no action with respect to it, his inaction constitutes approval. The purpose of sending him these reports was to apprize him of what was going on, including what overtime each employee had worked. He had general knowledge that the employees of this office as a matter of practice worked overtime. Indeed, he had encouraged it, and said that he expected it. It was a part of the purpose of these reports to let him know whether or not they were doing so. He is charged with knowledge of their contents, and his failure to disapprove of the overtime shown on them amounts to an approval of it.
Since the Department head made the 1954 amendment inapplicable to the offices in which plaintiffs worked and, therefore, they are not entitled to recover under it, they, perforce, are entitled to recover under the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945 as it was before the 1954 amendment.