Alexander v. United States

32 F.3d 1571, 2 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 392
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit·Decided August 17, 1994·No. No. 93-5156·Published·Cited by 22 cases

Opinion

SCHALL, Circuit Judge.

Appellants, nineteen present and former border patrol agents employed with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS or agency), appeal from the April 30,1993 judgment of the United States Court of Federal Claims,1 granting the government’s motion for summary judgment and dismissing their complaint. Alexander v. United States, 28 Fed.Cl. 475 (1993). In their action, appellants sought additional overtime compensation under the Act of March 2, 1931 (1931 Act), 8 U.S.C. §§ 1353a-1353b (1988), the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945 (FEPA), 5 U.S.C. §§ 5541-5550a (1988 & Supp. V 1993), and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (1988 & Supp. V 1993). We affirm.

BACKGROUND

A Facts

The pertinent facts are not in dispute. During the relevant period of time, in addition to their border patrol duties, appellants occasionally performed immigration inspection duties, including the inspection of vessels and crews. Alexander, 28 Fed.Cl. at 476. An inspection shift generally began with a call at their homes or at their border patrol stations from a ship’s agent informing them that a particular vessel was pulling into port. Id. Most of the inspection duties were performed between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m., Monday through Friday, or on Sundays and holidays, and thus constituted overtime work. Id. In addition, because they were prohibited from performing border patrol duties during their inspection shifts, appellants could not report for their border patrol shifts until after the completion of their inspection shifts. Id. As a result, appellants were often required to reschedule their border patrol shifts, resulting in unusually long work days. Id.

To compensate appellants for their overtime work, INS first paid them under the 1931 Act for their inspection duties and under FEPA for their border patrol duties. Id. at 484. It then computed their overtime pay under the FLSA, at the statutory rate of one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked (both border patrol and inspection duties) in excess of 85.5 hours per pay period. Id. If the combined amount initially paid under the 1931 Act and FEPA was less than the amount due under the [1573]*1573FLSA, INS paid appellants a supplemental amount for the difference. Id. If the combined amount was equal to or greater than the amount due under the FLSA, no additional payment was made. Thus, INS used 1931 overtime pay as an “offset” against its obligation to pay FLSA overtime pay. Put another way, INS offset its statutory obligation to pay overtime under the FLSA by deducting the amount it previously paid under the 1931 Act and FEPA from the amount of FLSA overtime pay that was due.

B. Proceedings in the Court of Federal Claims

On May 4, 1988, appellants brought an action for additional overtime compensation in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. In due course, their action was transferred to the Court of Federal Claims, where they filed an amended complaint on April 12, 1990. In their amended complaint, appellants claimed that, under the overtime compensation approach used by INS, in each pay period where they had worked overtime as border patrol agents and performed inspection duties, they were deprived of either 1931 Act or FLSA overtime pay to which they were entitled. Appellants based their claim on the fact that the overtime pay they had received as immigration inspectors under the 1931 Act was used to offset INS’ obligation to pay their FLSA overtime pay. Appellants contended that this approach was unlawful because the 1931 Act requires that overtime pay be treated as extra or additional and that the offset approach robbed it of that attribute.

On April 30, 1993, the court granted the government’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed appellants’ complaint. Id. at 488.2 The court noted that “both parties agree that the issues before the court are essentially legal questions of statutory interpretation.” Id. at 479. After reviewing the statutory schemes, the court determined that appellants had received all the overtime compensation to which they were entitled. The court allowed the government to use 1931 Act pay to offset its statutory obligation to pay appellants’ FLSA overtime pay. In so doing, the court rejected appellants’ argument that they should be paid 1931 Act pay for their inspection duties and FLSA overtime pay computed solely for their border patrol duties. The court determined that such an approach would directly contravene the governing Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regulations which provide that a federal employee is entitled to the greater of either FLSA overtime pay or some other statutorily authorized overtime compensation, such as that available under the 1931 Act and FEPA. Id. at 487. The court also considered appellants’ alternative argument that the government erred in computing their FLSA overtime pay. The court determined that 1931 Act pay constitutes premium pay, and not a lump sum paid for work performed during overtime hours without regard to the number of overtime hours worked. Id. at 483. Therefore, the court allowed the government to exclude appellants’ 1931 Act pay from their FLSA regular rate when computing FLSA overtime pay entitlement.

OPINION

A. Standard of Review

“In reviewing the granting of summary judgment by a trial court, an appellate court determine^] for itself whether the standards for summary judgment have been met and is not bound by the trial court’s ruling that there was no material factual dispute present in the case.” Mingus Constructors, Inc. v. United States, 812 F.2d 1387, 1390 (Fed.Cir. 1987). See Dehne v. United States, 970 F.2d 890, 892 (Fed.Cir.1992) (“This Court reviews the propriety of a summary judgment decision de novo.”).

[1574]*1574B. Statutory Background

Because this case involves the interplay of three different overtime pay schemes, we begin with a brief description of each statute.

1. 1931 Act

The 1931 Act provides extra pay for INS employees who perform immigration inspection duties between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. (evening hours), or on Sundays or holidays.3 The 1931 Act is administered under section 2978 of the INS Administrative Manual (AM), which provides for evening hours overtime inspections as follows:

One-half day’s pay for the initial time on duty of less than three (3) hours; Provided, that the time on duty is at least one (1) hour;
One (1) day’s pay for time on duty of three (3) hours or more, but less than five (5) hours during the period;

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Alexander v. United States, 32 F.3d 1571, 2 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 392 (Fed. Cir. 1994).

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