Court Opinion

ID: 9492478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:42:09.139952+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:19.545475
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
In my view, neither the district court nor the majority here come squarely to grips with the plaintiffs’ claim that they are, on some occasions, being denied compensatory time off for reasons forbidden under the Fair Labor Standards Act and its implementing regulations. The result, in my judgment, is that the plaintiffs con*763tinue to be denied relief to which they are entitled.
The parties agree that 29 U.S.C. § 207(o)(5)(B) assures that, in this case, an officer
shall be permitted by the employee’s employer to use [comp] time within a reasonable period after making the request if the use of the compensatory time does not unduly disrupt the operations of the public agency.
Thus, under this subsection there are two conditions precedent that must be satisfied before an employee may take comp time off: (1) the employee must be permitted to take the comp time within a reasonable period of time after making his request; and (2) taking the comp time must not unduly disrupt the operations of the Memphis Police Department.
One of the implementing regulations adopted by the Department of Labor provides that
[t]o the extent that the conditions under which an employee can take compensatory time off are contained in an agreement or understanding ... the terms of such agreement or understanding will govern the meaning of “reasonable period.”
29 C.F.R. § 553.25(c)(2).
The parties agree that there is a collective bargaining agreement in place between them. Unfortunately, the agreement, the foregoing agency regulation notwithstanding, does not define the term reasonable period. However, a Department of Labor regulation does define reasonable period as follows:
(c) Reasonable Period. (1) Whether a request to use compensatory time has been granted within a “reasonable period” will be determined by considering the customary work practices within the agency based on the facts and circumstances in each case. Such practices include, but are not limited to (a) the normal schedule of work, (b) anticipated peak workloads based on past experience, (c) emergency requirements for staff and services, and (d) the availability of qualified substitute staff.
29 C.F.R. § 553.25(c)(1).
The regulation also defines the expression unduly disrupt as follows:
(d) Unduly Disrupt. When an employer receives a request for compensatory time off, it shall be honored unless to do so would be “unduly disruptive” to the agency’s operations. Mere inconvenience to the employer is an insufficient basis for denial of a request for compensatory time off. (See H. Rep. 99-331, p. 23.) For an agency to turn down a request from an employee for compensatory time off requires that it should reasonably and in good faith anticipate that it would impose an unreasonable burden on the agency’s ability to provide services of acceptable quality and quantity for the public during the time requested without the use of the employee’s services.
29 C.F.R. § 553.25(d).
The plaintiffs concede that the defendant’s precinct commanders may properly reserve to themselves the authority to determine when the logbooks are “full,” so that the “manning” in the precinct will not fall below necessary levels and thus unduly disrupt the operation of the police department. The plaintiffs insist, however, that the precinct commanders are declaring the logbook full, not when there is a risk of manpower falling below what is necessary for the public safety, but rather when the number of officers requesting comp time off reaches the point that it will be necessary to pay their replacement officers at the overtime rate of pay. That excuse for declaring the logbook full, the plaintiffs argue, is not permitted under the FLSA, or the Labor Department regulations, or the collective bargaining agreement between the parties, because paying a replacement officer at the overtime rate does not unduly disrupt the operation of the police department as that term is defined in 29 C.F.R. § 553.25(d) and has nothing whatever to do with the “reasonable peri*764od” within which the comp time may be used following a request for it. In addition, the plaintiffs point to Department of Labor commentary on the application of the FLSA which provides:
The Department [of Labor] recognizes that situations may arise in which overtime may be required of one employee to permit another employee to use compensatory time off. However, such a situation, in and of itself, would not be sufficient for an employer to claim that it is unduly disruptive.
Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to Employees of State and Local Governments, 52, Fed.Reg.2012, 2017 (1987).
To the same effect, argue the plaintiffs, is an Eighth Circuit decision in Heaton v. Moore, 43 F.3d 1176, 1181 (8th Cir.1994), which holds that the fact that an employer must pay an employee overtime compensation in order to permit another employee to use accrued compensatory time off, does not, of itself, constitute an undue disruption allowing the employer to deny the request.
The defendant acknowledges that it has a policy of not permitting comp time to be taken if it would require the department to bring in a replacement officer at the overtime rate of pay. Plaintiffs claim that more often than not it is the application of this policy, forbidden by the federal regulations, that the precinct commanders employ to declare the logbooks full.
The district court failed to come to grips with this argument, stating only that “the City could have allowed the officer the time off by paying another officer overtime compensation to work in the requesting officer’s place [,but] [a]s general policy, the Division declined to call in officers on an overtime basis in order to permit another officer off for compensatory time.” Aiken v. City of Memphis, 985 F.Supp. 740, 745 (W.D.Tenn.1997). The district court then observed that a denial of compensatory time off for that reason “only occurred occasionally and was not routine.” Id. The plaintiffs claim it occurs all the time.
Instead of resolving this difficult, mixed question of fact and law, the district court merely held, as the majority opinion in this court does, that the entire issue is governed by the collective bargaining agreement between the parties, and the collective bargaining agreement has a provision as to the reasonable period within which time off may be requested. The district court’s reasoning, although to me rather abstruse, apparently is that if an officer doesn’t make a request for comp time early enough to assure that his replacement need not be paid time-and-a-half, then the officer will not have requested his time off within a reasonable period. The problem, of course, with that sort of reasoning is that it conflates the concept of the reasonable period within which the day off must be requested, and whether it is an undue disruption of the police department’s operations to permit the time off to be taken. Thus, the plaintiffs’ claim that the logbook is being declared full for a forbidden reason is never directly engaged.
The majority opinion likewise dodges the problem, simply by declaring that the whole issue is governed by the collective bargaining agreement, and the majority is “loath to interfere with [the] agreement.”
To me, that answer, like the district court’s answer, is no answer at all. The district court made a factual finding that “[a]s a general policy, the Division declined to call in officers on an overtime basis in order to permit another officer off for compensatory time.” Aiken, 985 F.Supp. at 745. In my opinion, this policy is precisely the practice the Department of Labor contemplated, and sought to forbid, when it declared that it would not be an undue disruption for an employer to ask one employee to work overtime in order to grant another employee time off. See Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to Employees of State and Local Governments 52 C.F.R.2012, 2017 (1987).
I would reverse the judgment of the district court with respect to this issue *765only. As to the remaining issues in the case, I concur in the majority opinion.