Hertz v. Woodbury County, Iowa

• Decision Date: 28 May 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-2612.,08-2612.
• Citation: 566 F.3d 775
• Parties: Charles HERTZ; Todd Wieck; Jim Cunningham; Estate of David Fox; All Other Situated Employees; Rebecca Legore-Post; Michael A. Tadlock; Scott Lanagan, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. WOODBURY COUNTY, IOWA, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

566 F.3d 775

Charles HERTZ; Todd Wieck; Jim Cunningham; Estate of David Fox; All Other Situated Employees; Rebecca Legore-Post; Michael A. Tadlock; Scott Lanagan, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. WOODBURY COUNTY, IOWA, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 08-2612.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: February 11, 2009.

Filed: May 28, 2009.

Charles E. Gribble, argued, Des Moines, IA, for Appellant.

Sharese A. Manker, argued, Douglas L. Phillips, on the brief, Sioux City, IA, for Appellee.

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, MELLOY and BENTON, Circuit Judges.

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Seven police officers and other unnamed plaintiffs ("Plaintiffs") currently or formerly employed by the Woodbury County Sheriff's Department (the "Sheriff's Department") filed suit against Woodbury County (the "County") for its alleged failure to pay overtime compensation in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-19. A jury returned a verdict in favor of the County on all issues and claims. Plaintiffs appeal, claiming that the district court¹ erred by failing to grant their motion for summary judgment, by failing to grant their motion for judgment as a matter of law, and by issuing and refusing to issue certain jury instructions. Having jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

I.

Plaintiffs filed suit against the County, alleging that it had failed to pay them overtime compensation in violation of the FLSA. Specifically, Plaintiffs raise three distinct pay-related claims. Plaintiffs Jim Cunningham and Charles Hertz allege that the County failed to compensate them for work performed during their commute time. Plaintiffs Cunningham, Todd Wieck, the Estate of David Fox, Michael Tadlock, Scott Lanagan, and Rebecca Legore-Post claim that the County failed to compensate them for work performed during Plaintiffs' mealtimes. Plaintiffs Cunningham, Hertz, Wieck, Tadlock, and Lanagan allege unpaid compensation for general overtime.

During the time relevant to this case, the named Plaintiffs occupied a number of varied positions in the Sheriff's Department. Sergeant Cunningham has been employed at the Sheriff's Department since June 1980. He is in charge of investigations, crime prevention, the school-resource program, and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education ("DARE") program. Cunningham's scheduled work hours are from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break. He is required to start and end the day at his desk with administrative duties. Lieutenant Hertz has been employed at the Sheriff's Department since May 1978. He is in charge of all of the patrol shifts, the hostage-rescue team, the K-9 division, and investigations and crime prevention. His scheduled hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with no lunch break. He is also required to start and end his work day at his desk with administrative duties. Cunningham reports directly to Hertz.

Sergeant Wieck has been employed by the Sheriff's Department since July 1990 as a DARE officer, a school-resource officer, and a community-policing officer. He works from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break. Lanagan has been an employee of the Sheriff's Department since May 1987. As a crime-scene investigator, his scheduled work hours are from 7:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.; however, during the summer he works from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. He has a half-hour lunch break. Former Sergeant Tadlock worked at the Sheriff's Department from April 1977 until June 2004. He was most recently in charge of the crime-prevention division and worked from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break. Former Sergeant Legore-Post was employed at the Sheriff's Department from May 1985 until February 2006 as a court-security officer. Her scheduled hours were from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break. Fox was employed by the Sheriff's Department from February 1981 until his death. At the time of his death, he worked in the day-patrol division from 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with a half-hour lunch break. The timing of the officers' lunch breaks was at their discretion.

Woodbury County is 960 square miles, encompassing Sioux City and several largely rural communities. Many of the Plaintiffs testified that they live many miles from the police station and have lengthy commutes each morning. The County provides all of its officers with marked police vehicles that it authorizes them to drive to and from their residences each day. It has been the County's practice to keep track of officers' actions by having them report their availability through a series of codes. The code "10-41" signifies that an officer has begun his or her tour of duty and is prepared to answer calls for assistance, including requests to help motorists, investigate accidents, and direct traffic. Conversely, the code "10-42" signals that an officer has completed his or her tour of duty and is no longer available to respond for police business. It is undisputed that the County's policy requires officers to go "10-41" at their residences at the beginning of each work day. Once an officer has returned to his or her residence at the end of a shift, the officer is able to go "10-42." The County tracks the duty-status of an officer through a program known as Computer Aided Dispatch ("CAD"). CAD records the moment that an officer goes "10-41" in the morning and the moment at which each officer goes "10-42" in the evening. It is also used throughout the day if an officer is unavailable for any reason. In addition to allowing the officers to engage in law-enforcement activity while they drive, by allowing the officers to use patrol cars as commute vehicles, the County hopes to diminish response time to requests for assistance and generally increase police presence in the jurisdiction.

The FLSA requires the County to keep track of the working hours of each employee that falls under the Act. 29 C.F.R. § 516.2. The County does this through a "sign-in sheet." Under this system, each officer is required to initial a sheet to indicate that the officer has worked his or her scheduled hours that day. In addition to this sheet, the payroll office uses overtime slips and vacation logs to compute each officer's time worked. When officers work overtime, they must submit an overtime slip to their supervisors indicating the amount of time worked in excess of their scheduled hours. The supervisors are then responsible for approving the overtime, and the slip is co-signed by either the division head or the chief deputy. After obtaining the proper signatures, the slip is forwarded to the payroll office and paid at the rate of one-and-a-half times the rate of pay. A former chief deputy testified that these overtime requests were "rarely denied."

Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment arguing that there were no material facts in dispute as to whether the County owed the Plaintiffs wages for unpaid commute time, mealtime, and general overtime. Within that motion, the Plaintiffs also argued for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a). See Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a). The district court denied summary judgment and judgment as a matter of law. At the close of the evidence, the Plaintiffs renewed their motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(a), which the district court again denied. The district court then submitted the case to the jury. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the County on all claims, and the district court entered the final judgment against the Plaintiffs on June 20, 2008. Plaintiffs failed to renew their motion for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b) within ten days of the entry of judgment. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b). The Plaintiffs appeal the district court's denial of their motion for summary judgment, its denial of their 50(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law, and its issuance and refusal to issue certain jury instructions.

II.

Plaintiffs first argue that the district court erred in denying their motion for summary judgment. This court, however, "will not review a district court's denial of a motion for summary judgment after a trial on the merits." EEOC v. Sw. Bell Tel., L.P., 550 F.3d 704, 708 (8th Cir.2008); Eaddy v. Yancey, 317 F.3d 914, 916 (8th Cir.2003) ("Even a cursory review of precedent in this Circuit reveals that we do not review a denial of a summary-judgment motion after a full trial on the merits." (citations omitted)); White Consol. Indus., Inc. v. McGill Mfg. Co., 165 F.3d 1185, 1189 (8th Cir.1999) ("A denial of summary judgment is interlocutory in nature and is ordinarily not appealable after trial and judgment."). Instead, we have stated that the "proper redress" for a denial of summary judgment following final judgment is "through subsequent motions for judgment as a matter of law ... and appellate review of those motions" if the district court denies them. White Consol. Indus., 165 F.3d at 1189 (quotation omitted).

As Plaintiffs note, we have, in at least one instance, allowed a party to appeal a district court's denial of summary judgment after final judgment when there were no disputed material facts and "the denial of summary judgment [was] based on the interpretation of a purely legal question." See id. at 1190 (allowing an appeal of a denial of summary judgment in a contracts case because "interpretation of a contract is a question of law for the court to decide") (quotation omitted). But in arguing that this case comes within any such limited exception for "purely legal questions," Plaintiffs mischaracterize their claims. At the time of the motion, the issues were not purely legal; rather, there were numerous and varied questions of material fact with regard to the compensability of commute-time, mealtime, and other overtime claims. Cf. Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 136-37, 65 S.Ct. 161, 89 L.Ed. 124 (1944) ("Whether ... [waiting] time falls within or without the...