Edwar A. Haber, Robert H. Moen, Ronald P. Tamillo, John Winning and Robert D. Sisson v. The Americana Corporation, a Corporation

378 F.2d 854, 55 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 31,926
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMay 15, 1967
Docket20711-20714
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 378 F.2d 854 (Edwar A. Haber, Robert H. Moen, Ronald P. Tamillo, John Winning and Robert D. Sisson v. The Americana Corporation, a Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Edwar A. Haber, Robert H. Moen, Ronald P. Tamillo, John Winning and Robert D. Sisson v. The Americana Corporation, a Corporation, 378 F.2d 854, 55 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 31,926 (9th Cir. 1967).

Opinion

BARNES, Circuit Judge.

Separate actions were initiated by Edward A. Haber, Robert H. Moen, Ronald P. Tamillo and John Winning, appellants in No. 20711, Robert D. Sisson, appellant in Nos. 20711 and 20712; Alvin Seidenberg, appellant in No. 20713 and Robert Kalmus, appellant in No. 20714, to recover unpaid overtime compensation. The four cases were consolidated for trial in the District Court, and have been consolidated in this court for the purpose of this appeal.

Appellants are all former employees of appellee Americana Corporation. They brought suit against their former employer under the Fair Labor Standards Act for unpaid overtime compensation, jurisdiction of the district court being under 28 U.S.C. § 1337. Americana counterclaimed for misappropriation and conversion of its property, jurisdiction of the counterclaim being under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a) (1). We have jurisdiction of the appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

Americana Corporation’s principal product is the Encyclopedia Americana which is sold in sets by salesmen throughout the country. In its Beverly Hills office Americana maintained a collection department to stimulate collections on accounts receivable. During 1963 and early 1964 appellants were employed in the collection department in various capacities. Some of appellants were telephone men, whose job was to call persons whose accounts were delinquent and urge payment. Other appellants were “area supervisors”, whose functions, inter alia, included supervision of telephone men in their area. Americana operated on a standard 37% hour work week, for which appellants were compensated at a flat monthly rate, regardless of hours worked. Appellants were also able to earn “bonuses” if they collected fifty-one per cent or more of the accounts assigned to them on a monthly basis.

Many of the employees in the collection department were engaged in one or more *856 schemes tp defraud the employer. One such scheme took the form of employees purchasing 1963 sets of the encyclopedia and paying for an out-of-date 1958 set. The 1963 set then would be sold by the employee to a third party at a profit. Another scheme involved collecting, through a dummy organization, long dormant accounts where the employees would retain the proceeds. A third scheme involved falsification of company records so that employees would be paid bonuses which were not in fact earned. The losses from these nefarious enterprises are the basis for Americana’s counterclaim.

The court below found that appellants had been adequately compensated for their overtime work. It also found that three appellants, Haber, Ronald Tamillo and Winning, as “area supervisors” were within the “administrative capacity” exemption for the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Finally, the court found that five of the appellants had conspired against Americana and rendered a judgment against them and in favor of Americana in the amount of $77,400. These three findings are challenged here.

I. Overtime Payments

The district court, as noted, found that each of the appellants had been adequately compensated for ■ overtime. The evidence supporting that finding is the testimony of Mr. Keleman, a certified public accountant. Mr. Keleman explained his approach thoroughly (R.T. pp. 1257-58), and further explained it on voir dire (R.T. pp. 1262-74). His method was to take the monthly salary and multiply by 12 to get the yearly wage. The yearly wage was divided by 52 to find the weekly pay, which was divided by 37% to obtain the regular hourly rate. This is substantially the procedure required by 29 C.F.R. § 778.113(b). At point, however, is the treatment of the “bonus” payments.

Mr. Keleman in his calculations used only the monthly salary to find the regular rate of pay. He then treated the “bonus” payments as compensation for overtime to arrive at his conclusions as to the adequacy of the compensation of individual appellants. In this he was in error. The Act requires the regular rate to include “all remuneration for employment”. 29 U.S.C. § 207(d). Excluded therefrom are certain items, §§ 207(d) (1) and (3) (a) being relevant here. Section 207(d) (1) excludes gifts made on special occasions the amounts of which are not dependent upon hours worked, production or efficiency. The present situation is not within that provision since the employees had to achieve a certain level of efficiency to get a bonus, and such bonuses were paid regularly rather than on special occasions. Section 207(d) (3) (a) applies only if the fact that the payment is to be made and the amount are in the sole discretion of the employer. Here a fixed level of performance determined whether or not a bonus was paid, not the discretion of the employer. Not being excluded, the bonus payments should have been included in calculating the regular rate of appellants’ compensation, and should not have been treated as overtime compensation. 1

The accountant’s conclusions as to adequate' remuneration were erroneous because based on incorrect treatment of “bonuses”, if for no other reason. As the court’s findings, were based on these conclusions, they too were erroneous, and must be reversed.

II. Administrative Capacity

Excluded from the time-and-one-half provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act is “any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity * * * (as such terms are defined * * * by regulations .of the Secretary, * * *) * * *” 29 U.S.C. § 213(a) (1). The Secretary has provided, in 29 C.F.R. § 541.2, five criteria which must be met to *857 qualify under the administrative exemption of 29 U.S.C. § 213(a) (1). One of these (29 C.F.R. § 541.2(d)) is that no more than twenty per cent of the employee’s time be spent in nonadministrative work. The test is not what employees are called, but what they actually did. There is no evidence brought to ■our attention of compliance with this requirement. Indeed, the only evidence is to the contrary. Appellant Haber testified that about sixty per cent of Iiis time was spent in the nonadministrative function of collecting accounts. (R.T. p. 51.) Ronald Tamillo estimated ■about eighty per cent of his time was spent on telephone collections or dealing with merchandise. (R.T. p. 589.) Winning estimated that fifty per cent of his time was spent as a telephone collector. (R.T. p. 159.)

In sum, the only evidence as to compliance with 29 C.F.R.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Moore v. MW Servicing, LLC
E.D. Louisiana, 2023
Abbey v. United States
99 Fed. Cl. 430 (Federal Claims, 2011)
McLaughlin v. McGee Bros. Co., Inc.
681 F. Supp. 1117 (W.D. North Carolina, 1988)
Donovan v. Two R Drilling Co., Inc.
581 F. Supp. 526 (E.D. Louisiana, 1984)
Marshall v. Gerwill, Inc.
495 F. Supp. 744 (D. Maryland, 1980)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
378 F.2d 854, 55 Lab. Cas. (CCH) 31,926, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/edwar-a-haber-robert-h-moen-ronald-p-tamillo-john-winning-and-robert-ca9-1967.