Blackie v. State of Me.

• Decision Date: 08 December 1995
• Docket Number: No. 95-1777,95-1777
• Citation: 75 F.3d 716
• Parties: , 131 Lab.Cas. P 33,348, 3 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 102 Dana BLACKIE, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. STATE OF MAINE, et al., Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 716

75 F.3d 716

64 USLW 2491, 131 Lab.Cas. P 33,348,

3 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 102

Dana BLACKIE, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. STATE OF MAINE, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 95-1777.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Dec. 8, 1995.

Decided Jan. 30, 1996.

John R. Lemieux, Readfield, ME, for appellants.

Peter J. Brann, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Andrew Ketterer, Attorney General, and Thomas D. Warren, Assistant Attorney General, Augusta, ME, were on brief, for appellees.

Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, BOWNES, Senior Circuit Judge, and STAHL, Circuit Judge.

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, several probation officers employed by the State of Maine seek to evade the consequences of what they belatedly deem to be a Faustian bargain. The district court thought the probation officers' claim took too much license, and rejected it. See Blackie v. Maine, 888 F.Supp. 203 (D.Me.1995). The plaintiffs appeal. ¹ We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

The subsidiary facts are not in serious dispute. Beginning in 1978, collective bargaining agreements between the State of Maine and certain state workers stipulated that those employees whose positions demanded that they work non-standard hours, i.e., irregular schedules exceeding forty hours per week, instead of, say, regular 9:00-to-5:00 shifts, would receive a sixteen percent premium over and above their base pay (but no overtime compensation). Probation officers' jobs satisfied this definition and therefore carried an entitlement to the pay premium.

In 1985, the United States Supreme Court handed down a resipiscent decision in which it confessed error, reversed prior precedent, and held that the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 201-219, applied to state employers. See Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 555-57, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 1019-21, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985). Maine promptly evaluated its work force to determine which state jobs came under the FLSA's overtime compensation provisions and which did not. After concluding that many positions within the law enforcement services bargaining unit of the Maine State Employees Association (the Union) were FLSA-covered, the State negotiated side agreements with the holders of those positions. In general, these pacts eased the transition by confirming the affected workers' eligibility for overtime compensation, increasing their base salaries by an average of four percent, and eliminating the sixteen percent non-standard pay premium. The State concluded, however, that the probation officers fell within an FLSA exemption for professional employees, see 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1), and therefore permitted them to retain their wonted status. Consequently, probation officers continued to receive the pay premium (but no overtime compensation).

In negotiations leading to the adoption of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to take effect in 1986, the State and the Union locked horns over the interplay between FLSA-mandated overtime compensation and the non-standard pay premium. The probation officers set out to secure guaranteed payment of the premium for the life of the contract, regardless of their status under the FLSA. The State balked. Eventually, the parties resolved the impasse by agreeing to the non-standard workweek article reprinted in the appendix.

Several years passed. Then, on December 18, 1992, a cadre of probation officers sued the State seeking the shelter of the FLSA. One year and three days later, the district court vindicated the probation officers' right to receive time-and-one-half overtime compensation under the federal law. See Mills v. Maine, 839 F.Supp. 3, 4-5 (D.Me.1993). The State eschewed an appeal. Instead, on January 3, 1994, Nancy Kenniston, the director of Maine's Bureau of Human Resources (BHR), notified all probation officers (including those who had not participated in the Mills litigation) that they would no longer receive the pay premium. The State reasoned that, under the terms of the non-standard workweek article, job classifications had to meet three enumerated criteria to qualify for non-standard status; the lack of FLSA coverage constituted one such criterion; Mills established juridically that the probation officers did not fulfill this criterion, i.e., they did not occupy "[p]ositions in a classification ... exempt for overtime compensation from the FLSA"; and, having lost their non-standard status, the probation officers had also lost their entitlement to the pay premium.

The Union countered this reclassification by proposing a side agreement similar to those entered into between the State and certain other bargaining units nearly a decade earlier. On February 2, 1994, Kenneth Walo, director of Maine's Bureau of Employee Relations, rejected this overture because the CBA expressly addressed the linkage between FLSA coverage status and the non-standard pay premium--a circumstance that did not obtain when the State negotiated the earlier pacts--and because the CBA's "zipper clause" made it pellucid that the parties had no obligation to renegotiate matters so addressed. ² Stymied by this turn of events, several probation officers sued a phalanx of defendants (collectively, the State) under the FLSA's anti-retaliation provision. ³ They charged, inter alia, that the State's decision to eliminate the pay premium while at the same time abjuring a side agreement constituted acts of reprisal provoked by the probation officers' successful crusade for FLSA overtime pay. The State denied the allegations.

After the parties cross-moved for summary judgment, the district court granted the State's motion. As to the lost pay premium, the court concluded that the bargained language of the CBA, as opposed to any retaliatory animus, compelled the result. See Blackie, 888 F.Supp. at 207. As to the State's spurning of a side agreement, the court held that this rebuff did not constitute an adverse employment action under the FLSA. See id. at 208. This appeal ensued.

II. ANALYSIS

The district court's closely reasoned opinion mortally wounds the arguments that the appellants parade before us. Thus, we affirm the judgment largely for the reasons already articulated, adding only the finishing touches.

First: The appellants labor to convince us that the parties' disagreement over the meaning of the non-standard workweek article forestalls the entry of summary judgment. Their labors are both unproductive and unpersuasive.

Of course, summary judgment is appropriate only if the record reveals no genuine issue of material fact and the movant demonstrates an entitlement to judgment as a matter of law. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); see also McCarthy v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 56 F.3d 313, 315 (1st Cir.1995) (collecting cases); National Amusements, Inc. v. Town of Dedham, 43 F.3d 731, 735 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 2247, 132 L.Ed.2d 255 (1995). Under this standard, "a party seeking summary judgment [must] make a preliminary showing that no genuine issue of material fact exists. Once the movant has made this showing, the nonmovant must contradict the showing by pointing to specific facts demonstrating that there is, indeed, a trialworthy issue." National Amusements, 43 F.3d at 735. Nonetheless, genuineness and materiality are not infinitely elastic euphemisms that may be stretched to fit whatever pererrations catch a litigant's fancy.

In the lexicon of Rule 56, "genuine" connotes that the evidence on the point is such that a reasonable jury, drawing favorable inferences, could resolve the fact in the manner urged by the nonmoving party, and "material" connotes that a contested fact has the potential to alter the outcome of the suit under the governing law if the controversy over it is resolved satisfactorily to the nonmovant. See United States v. One Parcel of Real Property (Great Harbor Neck, New Shoreham, R.I.), 960 F.2d 200, 204 (1st Cir.1992). The happenstance that both parties move simultaneously for brevis disposition does not, in and of itself, relax the taut line of inquiry that Rule 56 imposes. "Barring special circumstances, the nisi prius court must consider each motion separately, drawing inferences against each movant in turn." EEOC v. Steamship Clerks Union, Local 1066, 48 F.3d 594, 603 n. 8 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 65, 133 L.Ed.2d 27 (1995). Matters of law, however, are for the court to resolve. See Stauble v. Warrob, Inc., 977 F.2d 690, 693 (1st Cir.1992).

In this instance, the appellants confuse matters of fact with matters of law. It is for the court, not the jury, to ascertain whether the terms of an integrated agreement are unambiguous, and if so, how to construe those terms. See Allen v. Adage, Inc., 967 F.2d 695, 698 (1st Cir.1992). "In this sense, questions about the meaning of contractual provisions are questions of law, and we review the district court's answers to them de novo." United States Liab. Ins. Co. v. Selman, 70 F.3d 684, 687 (1st Cir.1995).

The appellants try to bypass these familiar rules by portraying the non-standard workweek article as freighted with ambiguity. But a contract is not ambiguous merely because a party to it, often with a rearward glance colored by self-interest, disputes an interpretation that is logically compelled. See FDIC v. Singh, 977 F.2d 18, 22 (1st Cir.1992). Nor must a contract "negate every possible construction of its terms in order to be unambiguous." Triple-A Baseball Club Assocs. v. Northeastern Baseball, Inc., 832 F.2d 214, 220 (1st Cir.1987) (quoting Waxler v. Waxler, 458 A.2d 1219, 1224 (Me.1983)), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 935, 108 S.Ct. 1111, 99 L.Ed.2d 272 (1988). Rather, a contract is ambiguous only when its terms lend themselves to more than one reasonable interpretation. See Fashion House, Inc. v. K mart Corp., 892 F.2d 1076, 1083 (1st Cir.1989); RCI Northeast Servs. Div. v. Boston Edison Co., 822...