Bull v. United States

68 Fed. Cl. 276, 10 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1817, 2005 U.S. Claims LEXIS 293, 2005 WL 2654300
United States Court of Federal Claims·Decided October 14, 2005·No. No. 01-56 C·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinion

ORDER

HEWITT, Judge.

Before the court are Defendant’s Motion to Clarify Court’s Decision (Def.’s Mot.), Plaintiffs’ Response to Defendant’s Motion to Clarify Order (Pl.’s Resp.), and Defendant’s Reply to Plaintiff’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motion for Clarification (Def.’s Reply). Defendant requests the court to clarify one aspect of its September 27, 2005 Opinion and Order (Slip Op. or Opinion), namely the amount of overtime compensation to which three representative plaintiffs, Messrs. Bailey, Kruzel, and Leuth, are entitled under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (2000) (FLSA), for constructing training aid containers. Def.’s Mot. at 1, 3.

I. Background

In its Opinion, the court concluded “that the representative plaintiffs are entitled to compensation under the FLSA [for] ... [constructing training aids: 1.5 hrs./wk.” Slip Op. at 94. However, representative plaintiffs Bailey, Kruzel, and Leuth claimed compensation based on an amount of time less than the amount of time that the court found to be reasonable for the off-the-clock work involved in the construction of training aid containers. Def.’s Mot. at 1-2. Specifically, Mr. Bailey claimed compensation for 1 hour per week (hr./wk.) from January 6, 2001 through July 31, 2004, of which the court awarded compensation until April 1, 2003,1 Slip Op. at 62 (citing Transcript of Trial (Tr.) at 117; Trial Exhibit (Ex.) 136 (Bailey Damages Spreadsheet)); Mr. Kruzel claimed compensation for 1.25 hrs./wk. from September 6, 1997 through July 3, 2004, Slip Op. at 94 (citing Tr. at 362; Ex. 952 (Kruzel Damages Spreadsheet)); and Mr. Leuth claimed compensation for .17 hrs./wk. from September 6, 1997 through October 20, 2001, Slip Op. at 62 (citing Ex. 990 (Leuth Damages Spreadsheet)); see also Tr. at 619-20 (Leuth, testifying that he built “[approximately 25 to 30 [training] aids a week”).

[278]*278II. The Parties’ Arguments

Defendant argues that “the Court intended to award compensation for a maximum of 1.5 hours per week for creating containers for training aids and that the Court did not award plaintiffs more compensation than they actually worked or claimed.” Def.’s Mot. at 2 (emphasis in original). To hold otherwise, defendant argues, would allow these plaintiffs to “receive an inappropriate windfall.” Def.’s Mot. at 3 (citing Hansen Bancorp, Inc. v. United States, 367 F.3d 1297, 1315 (Fed.Cir.2004)); Def.’s Reply at 2. Plaintiffs respond that “when, as here, an employer fails to maintain records of the amount of off-the-elock work performed, a court may award plaintiffs ‘approximate damages ... in the amount of ... their unpaid overtime compensation.’ ” Pl.’s Resp. at 3 (emphasis in original) (quoting Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 688, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946)). Thus, because the “the circumstantial evidence in the case strongly points to a conclusion that 1.5 hours per week is reasonably required to perform the off-duty work of constructing training aid containers,” Pl.’s Resp. at 3, plaintiffs argue that the court should compensate these plaintiffs for this amount of time despite the fact that their individual claims are for less, Pl.’s Resp. at 4.

III. Discussion

The parties’ arguments concern the court’s use of the “reasonableness” requirement for compensable overtime work performed. See generally 68 Fed.Cl. at 227-28. The case law discussing the reasonableness requirement for compensable overtime work generally refers to the requirement as a limitation on allowable compensation for off-duty activities. For example, in Holzapfel v. Town of Newburgh, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York found that “if a [canine] officer’s specific exertions, even though of a type that would generally be compensable, exceed reasonable limits, they cannot be considered integral and necessary and therefore do not constitute work---- [I]n order to be compensable, the amount of overtime an employee claims to have spent on efforts related to the employee’s principle activities must be reasonable.” 950 F.Supp. 1267, 1273-74 (S.D.N.Y.1997) (emphasis added), rev’d in part on other grounds, 145 F.3d 516 (2d Cir.1998). Similarly, in Hellmers v. Town of Vestal, the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York noted that “in order for an activity to be an ‘integral and indispensable part of the principal activities for which covered workmen are employed,’ the amount of overtime an employee claims to have spent must be reasonable in relation to the principal activity itself. Accordingly, the Court ... concludes that if an employee’s activities (both canine and non-canine), even though of a type that would generally be compensable, exceed reasonable limits, they cannot be considered integral and necessary, and therefore do not constitute “work’ under the FLSA.” 969 F.Supp. 837, 844 (N.D.N.Y.1997) (emphasis added) (quotations and citations omitted). The policy underlying the reasonableness requirement in these cases is to “ensure[ ] that plaintiffs are actually serving their employers’ benefit rather than padding their hours or shirking their responsibilities____Thus, although the Court recognizes that plaintiffs have worked overtime hours for which they have not received compensation, they will not receive compensation for hours that are unreasonable.” Albanese v. Bergen County, 991 F.Supp. 410, 424 (D.N.J.1998) (citing Hellmers, 969 F.Supp. at 844).

However, as plaintiffs argue, the reasonableness requirement is also used as a benchmark for courts to assess the amount of overtime compensation to which a plaintiff is entitled where that amount is uncertain or unrecorded by his or her employer. See Pl.’s Resp. at 3 (“[A] court may award plaintiffs ‘approximate damages’ ... because the impreciseness of the damage claim stems from the employer’s deficient records and not from any fault on the part of the Plaintiffs.”) (citing Mt. Clemens Pottery, 328 U.S. at 688, 66 S.Ct. 1187; Castillo v. Givens, 704 F.2d 181, 194-95 (5th Cir.1983); Fegley v. Higgins, 19 F.3d 1126, 1132-33 & n. 8 (6th Cir.1993); McLaughlin v. Ho Fat Seto, 850 F.2d 586, 589 (9th Cir.1988)); see also Albanese, 991 F.Supp. at 424 (“Moreover, if the Court does not adopt the reasonableness [279]*279standard, it will have to adopt plaintiffs’ guess of how many hours they worked because they do not know the exact number of hours they worked.”).

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Bull v. United States, 68 Fed. Cl. 276, 10 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1817, 2005 U.S. Claims LEXIS 293, 2005 WL 2654300 (uscfc 2005).

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