Abendschein v. Montgomery County, Md.

• Citation: 984 F.Supp. 356
• Decision Date: 04 November 1997
• Docket Number: No. CIV. A. AW-96-3392.,CIV. A. AW-96-3392.
• Parties: John V. ABENDSCHEIN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, Defendant.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

984 F.Supp. 356

John V. ABENDSCHEIN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND, Defendant.

No. CIV. A. AW-96-3392.

United States District Court, District of Maryland.

November 4, 1997.

William W. Thompson, II, Michael S. Wolly, Lauren F. Singer, Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs.

Charles W. Thompson, Jr., County Atty., Joann Robertson, Chief, Litigation Division, Bruce P. Sherman, Senior Asst. County Atty., Sharon V. Burrell, Associate County Atty., Rockville, MD, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

WILLIAMS, District Judge.

Plaintiffs commenced this action against Defendant alleging violation of the maximum hours provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. § 207. Presently before the Court are cross motions for summary judgment. No hearing is deemed necessary. Local Rule 105.6 (D.Md.). For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment as to liability, and will refer the issue of damages to a United States Magistrate Judge.

Factual Background¹

Each plaintiff is, or has at some time since January 1, 1993, been employed by Defendant as a corrections officer in a detention center in Rockville, Maryland. The detention center operates on a continuous, around-the-clock schedule. Most corrections officers are assigned to one of three eight and one-half hour shifts. Shift # 1 begins at 10:30 P.M. and ends at 7:00 A.M. Shift # 2 begins at 6:30 A.M. and ends at 3:00 P.M. Shift # 3 begins at 2:30 P.M. and ends at 11:00 P.M. Corrections officers generally receive a thirty minute meal period during the middle hours of each shift. Approximately six to eight officers take their meal periods at a time. A staff dining room is available for the officers.

Most officers are required to wear their uniforms during their meal periods. Officers must request permission to go outside of the facility to smoke during their meal period, and also must receive permission to leave the facility's grounds. At all times during their meal periods, the officers are subject to being recalled to their posts to participate in inmate counts, inmate shakedowns, or to provide assistance to other officers. The parties dispute how often these interruptions occur. Most officers are not allowed to sleep or use the facility's gymnasium during the meal period.

Plaintiffs bring suit under § 207 of the FLSA. Under § 207(a)(1), an employee must receive at least one and one-half times his regular rate for all hours worked in excess of forty hours in a week. Plaintiffs' shifts are scheduled for eight hours of work per day, with an additional one-half hour per day for their meal periods. Generally, Plaintiffs are not compensated for the one-half hour meal periods. Plaintiffs claim that they are actually working during the meal periods, which would mean that they work more than forty hours per week and are entitled to overtime pay under the FLSA for the hours worked in excess of forty per week.

Discussion

I. Summary Judgment

Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and when the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ. P. 56(c); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). The evidence of the non-movant is to be believed and all justifiable inferences drawn in her favor, but a party cannot create a genuine dispute of material fact through mere speculation or compilation of inferences. Runnebaum v. NationsBank of Md., N.A., 123 F.3d 156, 164 (4th Cir.1997) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2513-14, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Beale v. Hardy, 769 F.2d 213, 214 (4th Cir.1985)). "Summary judgment procedure is properly regarded not as a disfavored procedural shortcut, but rather as an integral part of the Federal Rules as a whole, which are designed `to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action.'" Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 327, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2555, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (citations omitted).

In determining whether genuine and material factual disputes exist, the Court has reviewed the parties' respective memoranda and the many exhibits attached thereto, construing all facts, and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to Defendant. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587-88, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356-57, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). Applying these principles to the record, the Court concludes that summary judgment as to liability must be granted in favor of Plaintiffs.

II. FLSA

The FLSA was enacted to provide workers with specific minimum protections against excessive work hours and substandard wages. See Monahan v. County of Chesterfield, Va., 95 F.3d 1263, 1267 (4th Cir.1996). To accomplish this goal, the FLSA contains minimum wage and overtime requirements. Id. Section 207(a)(1) requires that an employee receive overtime pay of at least one and one-half times her regular rate for any hours worked in excess of forty in a week.² The Supreme Court made the FLSA applicable to state and municipal governments in Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985). See Monahan, 95 F.3d at 1267.

Although the FLSA only requires overtime compensation for hours actually worked, the statute itself does not provide a definition of "work." See Reich v. Southern New England Telecomms. Corp., 121 F.3d 58, 64 (2d Cir.1997). The Supreme Court attempted to fill this gap, defining work as "physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business." Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590, 598, 64 S.Ct. 698, 703, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944).

At issue in this case is whether the time spent by Plaintiffs during their meal periods is compensable "work" under the FLSA. If it is, then Plaintiffs who have generally worked more than forty hours per week are entitled to overtime compensation under § 207(a)(1). Not paying employees for meal time is an exception to the FLSA compensation requirements that must be narrowly construed, and the burden is on the Defendant to show that it is entitled to the exception. Johnson v. City of Columbia, S.C., 949 F.2d 127, 129-30 (4th Cir.1991).

III. The Collective Bargaining Agreement

Corrections officers below the rank of lieutenant are represented by the Montgomery County Government Employees Organization ("MCGEO"), United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 1994.³ MCGEO has negotiated a series of employment agreements with Montgomery County, and the Plaintiffs have not argued that they are not covered by these agreements. Each of these agreements contains a provision authorizing overtime work for employees who work more than eight hours per day or forty hours per week.

Defendant asserts that the parties have repeatedly discussed the issue of paid meal periods during the agreement negotiations, but that it has never become part of the agreement. Plaintiffs do not challenge this assertion. In fact, the agreements clearly state that meal periods are not to be included while computing compensation. Thus, Defendant argues that the Court should defer to this apparent agreement by the parties that Plaintiffs' meal periods should not be defined as compensable work.

The Fourth Circuit has recognized a policy favoring arbitration of labor disputes. See Austin v. Owens-Brockway Glass Container, Inc., 78 F.3d 875, 879 (4th Cir.) (quoting Adkins v. Times-World Corp., 771 F.2d 829, 831 (4th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1109, 106 S.Ct. 896, 88 L.Ed.2d 930 (1986)), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 432, 136 L.Ed.2d 330 (1996). However, such deference does not apply to the FLSA. The Supreme Court has made it clear that "congressionally granted FLSA rights take precedence over conflicting provisions in a collectively bargained compensation arrangement." Barrentine v. Arkansas-Best Freight Sys., Inc., 450 U.S. 728, 740-41, 101 S.Ct. 1437, 1445, 67 L.Ed.2d 641 (1981). This different policy is based on the Supreme Court's belief that courts should not defer to an arbitral decision under a collective bargaining arbitration arrangement when a statute is designed to provide basic protections to workers. See id. at 737, 101 S.Ct. at 1443. The FLSA is this type of statute; it was designed to provide fundamental protections for employees regarding minimum wages and oppressive hours. See id. at 739, 101 S.Ct. at 1444. These FLSA rights are nonwaivable, and "cannot be abridged by contract." See id. at 740-41, 101 S.Ct. at 1444-45. "In sum, the FLSA rights petitioners seek to assert in this action are independent of the collective-bargaining process. They devolve on petitioners as individual workers, not as members of a collective organization. They are not waivable." Id. at 745, 101 S.Ct. at 1447.⁴ While Barrentine dealt with arbitration procedures, its emphasis on FLSA's guarantees to individual workers applies to this case. Thus, the Court may consider Plaintiffs' claims regardless of whatever agreements MCGEO and the County may have reached.

Defendant relies on a Seventh Circuit case involving Chicago police officers, in which that court deferred a meal period dispute to a collectively-bargained grievance process because the agreement in question protected the officers' right to overtime pay. See Leahy v. City of Chicago, Ill., 96 F.3d 228 (7th Cir.1996), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 1818, 137 L.Ed.2d 1027 (1997). The agreement stated that officers were entitled to overtime pay for hours worked in excess of eight hours per day or forty hours per week. Id. at 232. The court concluded that since the FLSA right to overtime pay was protected, the individualized grievance process was a more efficient way to determine whether an officer's meal...