Beall v. United States

22 Cl. Ct. 59, 30 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 153, 1990 U.S. Claims LEXIS 440, 1990 WL 179079
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedNovember 19, 1990
DocketNo. 676-89C
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 22 Cl. Ct. 59 (Beall v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beall v. United States, 22 Cl. Ct. 59, 30 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 153, 1990 U.S. Claims LEXIS 440, 1990 WL 179079 (cc 1990).

Opinion

OPINION

BRUGGINK, Judge.

This case is before the court on the Government’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In an opinion issued on October 2, 1990 this court dismissed claims made by 26 GS-11 electronics technicians employed by the National Weather Service (“NWS”). Ackerman v. United States, 21 Cl.Ct. 484 (1990). The issue there is identical to the main issue in this case: whether the relevant collective bargaining agreement excludes from its purview overtime pay disputes. An additional issue in this case is whether employees who are no longer members of the collective bargaining unit are still within the coverage of the unit’s collective bargaining agreement. We will not repeat the discussion in Ackerman, but instead adopt it in full. After considering the parties’ written and oral arguments, the court concludes that the bargaining agreements do not specifically exclude plaintiffs’ overtime pay disputes. The court also concludes, however, that there [60]*60are no grounds on which to dismiss the claims of employees who are no longer members of the collective bargaining unit. Thus, for the reasons discussed in Ackerman and below, defendant’s motion to dismiss is granted in part and denied in part.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

In December 1989, plaintiffs filed this action for lost overtime wages from December 1986 to the present. Plaintiffs are John Hargett Beall and 24 others who have filed their written consent to be party plaintiffs in accordance with 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) (1988). The plaintiffs are or were employed as GS-11 electronics technicians by the National Environmental Satellite and Data Acquisition Station (“NESDIS”). NESDIS is a component of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”), an agency of the Department of Commerce. Plaintiffs are or were employees within the meaning of § 7(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (1988).

As in Ackerman, plaintiffs allege that they have been unlawfully exempted from entitlement to overtime compensation under § 7(a),1 due to their employing agency’s adherence to regulations promulgated by the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”),2 the agency charged with administering the FLSA with respect to federal employees. See id. § 204(f). Defendant contends that plaintiffs are exempt from the FLSA as “professional” employees.

Plaintiffs are or were in a bargaining unit represented by the National Weather Service Employees Organization (“NWSEO”) (although NESDIS is not part of the NWS). They are or were covered by a nationwide collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) negotiated by NESDIS and NWSEO which became effective on November 9, 1979. The agreement contains negotiated grievance procedures and a list of grievances which are excluded from those procedures. The language of the agreement does not specifically use the term “Fair Labor Standards Act” in the coverage provisions or the enumerated exclusions.

Two plaintiffs, John Boa and Louis DeAngelis, Jr., are no longer employed by the agency. Boa was employed by NES-DIS from October 1977 through January, 1988. DeAngelis was employed by NES-DIS from 1979 through October, 1988. After Boa and DeAngelis left NESDIS, they obtained jobs with the NWS, where they are presently employed and covered by a bargaining agreement negotiated between NWSEO and NWS.

DISCUSSION

The Federal Circuit has held that the exclusivity of collective bargaining agreements, as dictated by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (“CSRA”), 5 U.S.C. § 7101 et seq. (1988),3 means that an agreement must specifically exclude FLSA overtime issues for those disputes not to be limited to negotiated grievance procedures. Carter v. Gibbs, 909 F.2d 1452, 1455 (Fed.Cir.1990), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 111 S.Ct. 46, 112 L.Ed.2d 22 (1990).

Plaintiffs contend that their FLSA overtime claims are excluded from their CBA’s negotiated grievance procedures by Article 10, § l(i) and therefore cannot be grieved. Article 10, § l(i) excludes: “Any issue where statutory appeal or complaint systems have been implemented.” Plaintiffs argue that Congress has implemented a [61]*61statutory appeal and complaint system for FLSA violations at 29 U.S.C. § 216 which vests this court with jurisdiction over this case. Therefore, plaintiffs contend, their grievance procedure has no jurisdiction over their FLSA complaints.

The exclusion of Article 10, § l(i) fails to overcome the presumption of Carter that grievance procedures are the exclusive method for resolving FLSA overtime grievances unless the parties provide otherwise. First, the Claims Court is not “a statutory appeal system” since plaintiffs’ claims have not yet been addressed. Even if the claims had already been addressed by an arbitrator, plaintiffs’ appeal is to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. 5 U.S.C. § 7122 (1988). Nor, in this court’s view, was the Claims Court contemplated by the reference to a “statutory complaint system,” Although § 216 when read in conjunction with the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1) (1988), does vest this court with jurisdiction over FLSA violations, this generalized jurisdictional grant hardly constitutes a complaint system. We conclude that the exclusion was a reference to well-defined, statutorily articulated procedures for resolving complaints, such as those heard by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,4 the Merit Systems Protection Board,5 and the Federal Labor Relations Authority6.

Second, the language of the exclusion is far too broad to meet the level of specificity required by Carter to exclude plaintiffs' claims from their negotiated grievance procedure. Plaintiffs’ interpretation of Article 10, § l(i) would exclude from the grievance procedure virtually any dispute that could be brought in another forum. Such an interpretation is incompatible not only with the holding in Carter but also with the intent of Congress that the CSRA would provide an “integrated scheme of administrative and judicial review.” See Carter, 909 F.2d at 1456 (quoting United States v. Fausto, 484 U.S. 439, 445, 108 S.Ct. 668, 672, 98 L.Ed.2d 830 (1988)). Particularly in view of the type of issue raised here— whether conversion of employees to nonexempt status was correct — the rationale of Carter is implicated. Such determinations necessitate “proof as to each plaintiff,” Abundis v. United States, 18 Cl.Ct. 657, 664 (1989), and raise local, fact-specific issues that are best suited to the grievance procedures provided for by the CBA.

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22 Cl. Ct. 59, 30 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 153, 1990 U.S. Claims LEXIS 440, 1990 WL 179079, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beall-v-united-states-cc-1990.