Home » Posts tagged 'Overtime' (Page 4)
Tag Archives: Overtime
9th Cir.: While Home Data Transmissions Taking 15 Minutes Are Not De Minimis, Because Workers Are Completely Relieved Of Duty Between Finishing Work And Performing The Transmissions, They Are Not Part Of The Continuous Workday
Rutti v. Lojack Corp., Inc.
The district court granted Lojack summary judgment, holding that Rutti’s commute was not compensable as a matter of law and that the preliminary and postliminary activities were not compensable because they either were not integral to Rutti’s principal activities or consumed a de minimis amount of time. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of compensation under federal law for Rutti’s commute and for his preliminary activities. However, they vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment on Rutti’s claim for compensation of his commute under California law and on his postliminary activity of required daily portable data transmissions. It is compensability of the postliminary portable data transmissions that is discussed here.
Discussing the claim it revived, the Court stated, “Lojack requires that Rutti, after he completes his last job for the day and goes ‘off-the-clock,’ return home and send a PDT transmission to Lojack using a modem provided by Lojack. The transmissions have to be made every day as they provide Lojack with information concerning all the jobs its technicians perform during the day. The transmissions appear to be ‘part of the regular work of the employees in the ordinary course of business,’ and are ‘necessary to the business and [are] performed by the employees, primarily for the benefit of the employer, in the ordinary course of that business.’ Dunlop, 527 F.2d at 401. Accordingly, at least on summary judgment, the district court could not determine that this activity was not integral to the Rutti’s principal activities.
Lojack might still be entitled to summary judgment, if it could be determined that this postliminary activity was clearly de minimis. The evidence before the district court, however, does not compel such a conclusion. The fact that several technicians testified that they spent no more than five to ten minutes a night on PDT transmissions might appear to give rise to a presumption that an activity is de minimis, see Lindow, 738 F.2d at 1062, but such a conclusion is neither factually nor legally compelling.
It is not factually compelling because, although it may take only five to ten minutes to initiate and send the PDT transmission, the record shows that the employee is required to come back and check to see that the transmission was successful, and if not, send it again. There is also evidence in the record that there are frequent transmission failures. Accordingly, the record does not compel a finding that the daily transmission of the record of the day’s jobs takes less than ten minutes.
Furthermore, we have not adopted a ten or fifteen minute de minimis rule. Although we noted in Lindow, that “most courts have found daily periods of approximately 10 minutes de minimis even though otherwise compensable,” we went on to hold that “[t]here is no precise amount of time that may be denied compensation as de minimis ” and that “[n]o rigid rule can be applied with mathematical certainty.” 738 F.2d at 1062. The panel went on to set forth a three-prong standard, which would have been unnecessary if the panel had intended to adopt a ten or fifteen minute rule.
The application of this three-prong test to the facts in this case do not compel a conclusion that the PDT transmissions are de minimis. The first prong, “the practical administrative difficulty of recording the additional time,” id. at 1063, is closely balanced in this case. Certainly, it is difficult to determine exactly how much time each technician spends daily on the PDT transmissions. It is also not clear what activities should be covered. Is the time when the technician comes back to check to see if the transmission was successful included? When a technician is waiting until ten minutes after the hour, is he “engaged to wait” or “waiting to be engaged?” See Owens, 971 F.2d at 350. Although it may be difficult to determine the actual time a technician takes to complete the PDT transmissions, it may be possible to reasonably determine or estimate the average time. For example, there is evidence in the record that Lojack had agreed to pay one technician an extra 15 minutes a day to cover the time spent on PDT transmissions. In sum, the inherent difficulty of recording the actual time spent on a particular PDT transmission does not necessarily bar a determination that the PDT transmissions are not de minimis. See Reich v. Monfort, Inc., 144 F.3d 1329, 1334 (10th Cir.1998) (holding that the time it took meat packers to don and shed their employer-mandated clothing was not de minimis even though “the practical difficulty of supervising and recording the additional time weighs in favor of finding it noncompensable”).
The other two prongs, “the aggregate amount of compensable time,” and “the regularity of the additional work,” Lindow, 738 F.2d at 1063, favor Rutti. Rutti asserts that the transmissions take about 15 minutes a day. This is over an hour a week. For many employees, this is a significant amount of time and money. Also, the transmissions must be made at the end of every work day, and appear to be a requirement of a technician’s employment. This suggests that the transmission “are performed as part of the regular work of the employees in the ordinary course of business,” Dunlop, 527 F.2d at 401, and accordingly, unless the amount of time approaches what the Supreme Court termed “split-second absurdities,” the technician should be compensated. See Anderson, 328 U.S. at 692.
Our review of the record suggests that the PDT transmissions are an integral part of Rutti’s principal activities and that there are material issues of fact as to whether the PDT transmissions are de minimis. Accordingly, the grant of summary judgment in favor of Lojack on Rutti’s claim for the transmissions must be vacated. See Balint v. Carson City, Nev., 180 F.3d 1047, 1054 (9th Cir.1999) (holding that in reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we do “not weigh the evidence or determine the truth of the matter, but only determines whether there is a genuine issue for trial”). This does not mean that on remand, Lojack may not be able to make a persuasive factual showing for summary judgment under the standard clarified in this opinion. We, however, decline to make such a decision in the first instance.”
The Court then turned to Plaintiff-Appellant’s argument that the compensability of the work necessarily made postliminary commute time compensable under the “continuous workday” rule. Rejecting this argument, the Court explained:
“Finally, Rutti argues that under the continuous workday doctrine, because his work begins and ends at home, he is entitled to compensation for his travel time, citing Dooley v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 307 F.Supp.2d 234 (D.Mass.2004). In Dooley, automobile damage appraisers sought compensation for the time they spent traveling from their offices in their homes to locations where they inspected damaged cars. Id. at 239. The district court first determined that the work the appraisers undertook at home constituted principal activities. Id. at 242. The court then determined that compensation was not prohibited by the Portal-to-Portal Act, and concluded that those appraisers who could show that they performed work at home before or after their daily appraisals were entitled to compensation. Id. at 249.
Even were we to adopt the continuous workday doctrine set forth in Dooley, Rutti would not be entitled to compensation for his travel time to and from the job sites. We have already determined that Rutti’s preliminary activities that are not related to his commute are either not principal activities or are de minimis. Accordingly, his situation is not analogous to the situation in Dooley. See 307 F.Supp.2d at 245 (“The first and last trip of the day for these appraisers is not a commute in the ordinary sense of the word-it is a trip between their office, where their administrative work is performed, and an off-site location.”).
Our determination that Rutti’s postliminary activity, the PDT transmission, is integrally related to Rutti’s principal activities might support the extension of his work day through his travel back to his residence, were it not for 29 C.F.R. § 785.16. This regulation provides that “[p]eriods during which an employee is completely relieved from duty and which are long enough to enable him to use the time effectively for his own purposes are not hours worked.” Lojack allows a technician to make the transmissions at any time between 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. Thus, from the moment a technician completes his last installation of the day, he “is completely relieved from duty.” His only restriction is that sometime during the night he must complete the PDT transmission. Because he has hours, not minutes, in which to complete this task, the intervening time is “long enough to enable him to use the time effectively for his own purpose.” See Mireles v. Frio Foods, Inc., 899 F.2d 1407, 1413 (5th Cir.1990) (holding that waiting time “greater than forty-five minutes are not compensable because Plaintiffs were not required to remain on Defendant’s premises during such periods and could use such periods effectively for their own purposes”). Rutti has not shown that the district court erred in determining that neither his preliminary nor postliminary activities extended his workday under the continuous workday doctrine.”
S.D.Fla.: Assistants At Medical Office Properly Allege Individual Coverage Under The FLSA, Based On Evidence Of Regular Communications With Out-Of-State Insurers, Patients And Vendors
Lopez v. Pereyra
Plaintiffs brought this action to recover unpaid overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Defendant was an obstetrics and gynecological doctor’s office located in Hollywood, Florida. Plaintiff Carmen Lopez was a medical assistant in the Office from October 31, 2006 through January 23, 2009. Plaintiff Dawn Serra was an administrative assistant in the Office from May 2, 2006 through May 1, 2009. Plaintiffs alleged that the Office met the requirements of an enterprise under the FLSA and that each Plaintiff also qualified for individual coverage because they engaged in commerce. Defendant moved for summary judgment arguing that the Office was not an enterprise as defined by the FLSA and Plaintiffs were not individually engaged in interstate commerce so as to trigger individual coverage. The Court agreed that Defendant was not an enterprise engaged in commerce, based on its tax returns showing revenue of less than $500,000.00 per year. However, the Court denied Defendant’s Motion as to individual coverage, holding that Plaintiffs’ allegations of regular communications with out-of-state insurers, out-of-state patients and out-of-state vendors, if true, satisfied the “engaged in commerce” test for individual coverage.
Discussing the applicability of individual coverage, the Court stated:
“For individual coverage to apply under FLSA, an employee must present evidence that he or she was (i) engaged in commerce or (ii) engaged in the production of goods for commerce. See Thome v. All Restoration Services, Inc., 448 F.3d 1264, 1265-1266 (11th Cir.2006).FN4 The Eleventh Circuit found that to “engage in commerce,” a plaintiff must “directly participat[e] in the actual movement of persons or things in interstate commerce.” Thome, 448 F.3d at 1266. When determining individual coverage, the character of the employee’s activities is determinative, not the nature of the employer’s business. Overstreet v. N. Shore Corp., 318 U.S. 494, 498 (1943).
FN4. The Department of Labor takes the position that the “[s]hipment of goods from another State direct to a customer located in the same State as the distributor who ordered the shipment, constitutes interstate commerce by virtue of which [ ] the distributor’s employees who procured the shipment … are covered by the FLSA as being engaged in interstate commerce.” Field Operations Handbook (FOH), Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Dep’t of Labor, § 11 i15 (1994). Although not entitled to Chevron deference, the Department of Labor’s Field Operations Handbook has been held to be persuasive and entitled to some weight in judicial interpretations of the FLSA. See Martin v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm’n, 499 U.S. 144, 157, 111 S.Ct. 1171, 113 L.Ed.2d 117 (1991); Morgan v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc., 551 F.3d 1233, 1275 (11th Cir.2008).
A key factor in determining if a plaintiff engaged in commerce for purposes of individual coverage under the FLSA is whether such activities were a “regular and recurrent” part of the plaintiff’s employment duties. 29 C.F.R. 776.10(b). The “employee’s interstate activity must be regular and recurrent and not simply isolated or sporadic for jurisdiction to exist.” Dent v. Giaimo, 606 F.Supp.2d 1357, 1360 (S.D.Fla.2009) (citing Scott v. K.W. Max Investments, Inc., 256 Fed. App’x 244, 247 (11th Cir.2007)); see also Curry v. High Springs Family Practice and Diagnosis Center, Inc., 2009 WL 3163221 (N.D.Fla. Sept.30, 2009) (granting summary judgment on FLSA claim by doctor’s assistant who performed primarily administrative functions and had only sporadic contact with out-of-state insurers).
The Court finds that there is a factual dispute regarding whether individual coverage applies to each Plaintiff. Defendants rely heavily on the Dent case where the court found no individual coverage for a medical assistant working in a local doctor’s office. Judge Ryskamp’s decision in Dent presents a similar, though distinguishable, factual scenario. Dent can be distinguished on two grounds, which ultimately require a different result.
First, Judge Ryskamp found that “although some patients may have been residents of other states, defendant was not engaged in interstate commerce if his contact with those patients was primarily local.” Dent, 606 F.Supp.2d at 1361. In Dent, “there [was] no evidence to suggest that defendant solicited business from patients while they were out of state or that any contract with out of state patients was regular or recurrent.” Id. Conversely, the Declaration of Carmen Lopez states that “[o]n a weekly basis I … made telephone calls to patients located in Santo Domingo and other states.”
Second, in Dent, “although the plaintiff averred that her job duties included contacting out of state insurance companies she did not allege how much of her time was spent conducting these activities.” 606 F.Supp.2d at 1361 (emphasis in original). Therefore, the court reasoned that “[i]t could be that [other individuals in the office] conducted the majority of those activities and that plaintiff only occasionally contacted out of state insurance companies.” Id. Here, the Declaration of Dawn Serra states that she “used to telephone [ ] insurance companies outside of Florida to verify patient insurance coverage at least three (3) times each work day.” DE 38-2 ¶ 5. Further, Ms. Serra declares that her job duties “each work day” also included (i) “mailing twelve (12) to twenty five (25) billing and other insurance forms to insurance companies outside of Florida;” id. ¶ 6, and (ii) “opening mail containing checks and other documents from insurance companies outside of Florida.” Id. ¶ 7.
In addition, Defendants rely on Thorne to argue that “[w]ith respect to the supplies and equipment used by the [Office], Plaintiffs do not allege that the [Office] engaged in the sale of goods that came from other states.” DE 42 at 5. “Plaintiffs’ ‘activities were not rendered interstate commerce simply because [the Office], an ultimate consumer, purchased goods which had previously moved in interstate commerce.’ “ Id. (quoting Thome, 448 F.3d at 1267). This argument holds true with respect to medical supplies used by the Office such as syringes, latex gloves and surgical sutures. The same cannot be said with respect to products and medications for which the Office’s patients were the ultimate consumer. In this regard, Ms. Lopez states that she “regularly used the telephone to call businesses to order from outside of Florida birth control medications for patients, birth control devices for patients and bladder control devices for patients.” Id. ¶ 5. Ms. Lopez also attests that she used “the telephone weekly to call patient insurance companies outside of Florida to obtain authorization for medications that the insurance companies did not cover.” Id. ¶ 6.
Finally, Defendants argue that Plaintiffs’ Declarations are vague and rely on words such as “regularly.” Defendants claim that such statements are conclusory and fail to “state the frequency with any particularity.” DE 42 at 4. Defendants claim is not entirely accurate as each Declaration does contain certain specific statements regarding the frequency of employment activities. Moreover, Defendant has not provided the Court with any telephone records, invoices or patient information that would enable this Court to conclude that Plaintiffs did not engage in commerce on a “regular and recurrent” basis. Cf. Curry v. High Springs Family Practice and Diagnosis Center, Inc., 2009 WL 3163221 (N.D.Fla. Sept.30, 2009).
In Curry, the plaintiff relied on an affidavit describing the number of times she communicated with out-of-state insurers. Id. at *1. “In response, Defendants provided detailed billing records for all phone and facsimile lines at the walk-in-clinic from the relevant time period.” Id. Based on this evidence, the Court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants finding that plaintiff’s contact with out-of-state insurers was sporadic at best. Id. at *4. In this case, the parties have relied solely on conflicting declarations and, therefore, the Court can only decide this issue by making credibility determinations. “Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions ….” Anderson, 477 U.S. at 255. Therefore, whether each Plaintiff qualifies for individual coverage is factually in dispute and must be decided by the trier of fact. Accordingly, Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment will be denied on the issue of individual coverage.”
NYC Contractor Charged With Wage Theft And Falsifying Business Records
The New York Times is reporting that a NYC contractor, who has done millions of dollars worth of work for various New York City public organizations and authorities over the past 20 years, was recently indicted and charged for allegedly widespread wage-theft on its jobs.
“The indictment… accuses M. A. Angeliades of failing to pay prevailing wages and benefits to employees who were working on rehabilitating 11 subway stations from January 2005 through December 2007, officials said.
Although the charges were limited to the company’s work on the 11 stations, covered by four contracts with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, who announced the indictments, suggested widespread crime. “I think it’s clear they stole a lot more,” Mr. Morgenthau said at a news conference to announce the charges….
the thrust of the charges is that Mr. Angeliades and the others went to great lengths to avoid paying union wages and benefits for overtime and weekend work to the company’s employees, instead paying them $20 an hour, and keeping the additional $40 to $55 an hour that the company was required to pay into union benefit funds, prosecutors said.
By failing to pay prevailing wages and benefits, as the law requires on public contracts, companies reap significant savings that allow them to underbid their competition and make substantially larger profits.
Over the past decade, the company has done $432 million worth of work for the M.T.A., $236 million for the School Construction Authority and tens of millions of dollars’ worth of work for the city and other public agencies.
After the company came under scrutiny, the city and several other agencies warned their contracting officers away from M. A. Angeliades, but it is still doing millions of dollars’ worth of work for the transportation authority, the School Construction Authority and the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation.”
To read the entire article go to the New York Times Website.
W.D.Wash.: Flight Attendants Not Entitled To Compensation For Training Time Which Was For Their Benefit
Ulrich v. Alaska Airlines, Inc.
The parties agreed to the applicability of and the Court applied, the six-factor test adopted by the Department of Labor in several Opinion letters, to determine whether trainees are employees under the FLSA.
The six factors which must be met in order for the trainees not to be employees are:
1) the training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;
2) the training is for the benefit of the trainees;
3) the trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under close observation;
4) the employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees; and on occasions his operations may actually be impeded;
5) the trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the completion of the training period; and
6) the employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent training.
The Court granted Alaska summary judgment, finding that Alaska’s training program meets all six requirements of the six-factor Department of Labor test. The Court therefore followed the American Airlines and TWA cases from the Fifth and Eighth Circuit Courts of Appeals in ruling that the flight attendant training program conducted by Alaska Airlines does not constitute compensable “work” under the FLSA. Additionally the Court held that the training time does it constitute work within California for which compensation is due under California labor law.
Overtime Law Blog 