Caryk v. Coupe

Decision Date27 February 1987
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 84-0730.
Citation663 F. Supp. 1243
PartiesMichael CARYK, et al., Plaintiffs, v. George A. COUPE, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Columbia

Sydney E. Rab, Woodbridge, Va., and Barbard D. Lindskold, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.

Jeffrey L. Berger, Shawn, Berger & Mann, Washington, D.C., for defendants.

OPINION

JUNE L. GREEN, District Judge.

This action is brought by 10 chauffeurs formerly with Admiral Limousine Service ("Admiral") to recover past-due wages and overtime compensation for the years 1981-1984, pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201 et seq. (1982), and the District of Columbia Minimum Wage Act ("D.C. Minimum Wage Act"), 36 D.C.Code §§ 201 et seq. (1981). A trial to the Court was followed by extensive post-trial briefing.

I. Findings of Fact

Defendants George A. Coupe and Bernard Resnick, at all material times herein, have done business as Admiral Limousine Service, a partnership providing chauffeur-driven limousines to the public and government for hire. Transcript ("Tr.") at 665-66. Admiral maintains an office and garage at 1243 First Street, S.E., Washington, D.C., and a bookkeeping office in Alexandria, Virginia. Admiral is an employer involved in interstate commerce. Tr. at 646-47.

The majority of Admiral's work involves servicing the business needs of clients from Monday through Friday, with most jobs beginning between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Most jobs were arranged and assigned to chauffeurs at least one day in advance. Tr. at 232, 508, 604, 655-59, 666-67.

Each chauffeur was expected to arrive at work in uniform. He would report to the dispatcher who then assigned him a vehicle. Tr. at 138, 384. It then became the responsibility of the chauffeur to make sure his assigned vehicle was clean, fueled, and in satisfactory mechanical order. Tr. at 138, 184. The chauffeur would then remain on call until given a driving assignment. Tr. at 141.

Upon completion of a driving assignment, the driver would either return to the office or call in to the office with the necessary billing information. Tr. at 657. Admiral did not normally require its chauffeurs to keep or turn in job slips, which record the name of the customer and the various stops made. Tr. at 267, 773-74.

Chauffeurs were compensated for driving in several ways. For most assignments, chauffeurs were paid one-third of the average customer charge. There was a three-hour minimum for most driving assignments, and chauffeurs would receive one-third of the three-hour minimum charge even though their actual work time was less than three hours. Tr. at 674-78. For trips to area airports, chauffeurs were paid a flat fee: $10.00 to National Airport, $20.00 to Dulles Airport, and $23.33 to Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Tr. at 678. For out-of-town trips, chauffeurs received one-third of a dollar per mile. Id. At most times pertinent hereto, chauffeurs earned between $7.50 and $20.00 per hour of driving. Id.

During all times material herein, there was a specific waiting time, or "guaranty" agreement between Admiral and its employees. A chauffeur had the option to be paid, and Admiral agreed to compensate him, for time spent at Admiral's office waiting to be dispatched if certain conditions were met by the chauffeur. The terms of the agreement were posted on an information sheet in the chauffeurs' lounge as follows:

Guaranty is $30.00 for an 8 hour day and covers the time from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Guaranty is secured for any jobs totalling under $30.00 between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Guaranty is secured for any job that begins at 5:01 p.m. or after. You must be on time to collect the guaranty.

Defendants' Exhibit 4; Tr. at 683.

The guaranty agreement was available Monday through Friday. The chauffeurs understood that they were not entitled to be paid for waiting past 5:00 p.m., and that the guaranty was not available on the weekend except by special arrangement. The guaranteed wage was $20.00 until September 1981, when it was raised to $30.00. Tr. at 164-67, 177, 183, 210-11, 230, 294-95, 578, 678.

While it is apparent that Admiral maintained this waiting time arrangement so as to ensure the ready availability of chauffeurs to meet the unpredictable number of calls for service it received, most of the jobs were assigned the day before by telephone, by the two-way car radio, in person, or if the client assignment continued. Tr. at 667, 784. Such being the case, most of Admiral's chauffeurs did not participate in the waiting time arrangement.

Beginning in January 1983, Admiral required its chauffeurs to sign a "sign-in sheet" by 8:30 a.m. to be eligible for the guaranty. If a chauffeur waited all day, he was required to sign out at 5:00 p.m. Chauffeurs who remained at the office pursuant to the guaranty agreement were not free to come and go at their pleasure. Tr. at 142. Chauffeurs who arrived after 8:30 a.m. were free to leave as they were not entitled to be paid for waiting under the guaranty agreement. Tr. at 684-85. Those chauffeurs who preferred to wait at home or elsewhere, awaiting assignment by telephone or electronic pager, did enjoy freedom of mobility. Tr. at 67, 115, 342.

Admiral maintained "limousine sightseeing work records" which recorded on a daily basis each driving assignment. These records included the time the chauffeur began and ended each job, any prearranged gratuity, the customer's name, place of pickup, the chauffeur's name and the car number to which he or she was assigned. The limousine sightseeing records did not always indicate the points of destination. In many places, the records state "one way only" or "as directed." In such cases, there is no recordation of the various locations to which the chauffeur travelled. The limousine sightseeing work records also indicated whether a chauffeur was off work, late, had been assigned a job the previous day, and whether the chauffeur took home an assigned limousine the night before. Defendants' Exhibits 1(a)-1(d); Tr. at 651-57, 668-71.

Admiral relies upon the limousine sightseeing work records to collect its data for billing and pay purposes. Tr. at 651. In compensating the chauffeurs, the data is then transcribed onto the daily payroll records. Plaintiffs' Exhibits 11-14. These payroll records list the amount due each chauffeur for each job, any gratuities due, and whether any sum was due pursuant to the guaranty agreement as shown by a "G" in the appropriate column. The payroll records also recorded whether chauffeurs were off work, on vacation, and whether they were to be charged for taking a car home or for the installment purchase of an electronic pager. Tr. at 660-65. The charge for taking a limousine home overnight was $10.00.

The compensation due each chauffeur is then computed artificially so as to reflect regular hours and overtime hours. Tr. at 736. Admiral pretends that the first $160 earned by a chauffeur in a workweek constitutes 40 hours of straight pay at $4.00 per hour, despite the actual rate of $7.50 to $20.00 per hour. Supra at 3. Admiral then assigns the balance of the chauffeur's earnings to overtime at $6.00 per hour, irrespective of the actual working hours, many of which went into the night. Any leftover figures are designated as tips. Tr. at 763-65. Admiral prepared this artificial breakdown of the chauffeurs' compensation ostensibly to satisfy the District of Columbia Minimum Wage Board's requirement that employers report their employees' compensation on an hourly basis. Tr. at 736.

These artificial figures are then transcribed on each chauffeur's quarterly payroll record and onto each chauffeur's pay stub. Plaintiffs' Exhibits 1-10. So for every paycheck received by the chauffeur, the hours listed are wrong, the gratuities listed are wrong, and the hourly rate is listed incorrectly as $4.00 per hour. Tr. at 772. Thus, during the time period relevant to this litigation, Admiral did not maintain records of the total number of hours each chauffeur drove, or the aggregate number of hours he worked in any given week. Tr. at 765-66. The chauffeurs, however, do have an opportunity to correct any inaccuracies in pay by submitting a "shortage sheet." Such claims for additional compensation were reviewed and, if valid, corrected. Tr. at 717-18; Plaintiffs' Exhibit 51.

Admiral compiled summaries of wages due each plaintiff from the limousine sightseeing work records and the payroll records. The summaries include driving and waiting hours during the period March 1981, through February 1984. The summaries purport to indicate if and by how much any plaintiff's wage rate in a given week fell below the minimum wage rate required by law and the number of hours, if any, that each plaintiff worked in the District of Columbia in excess of 40 hours in a week without being paid an overtime premium of one-half of the regular rate. Tr. at 688-712; Defendants' Exhibits 9a-9j.

Defendants compiled these summaries using a variety of sources and a variety of techniques. In calculating waiting hours in 1981 and 1982 when there was no sign-in sheet available, for any weekday for which plaintiffs Hardmon, Cole, Gomez, Mascarenhas, Idelbi, or Singh claimed to have waited, Admiral credited them with their claimed waiting time as follows: On days when the records indicated that they were given the full waiting time guarantee, i.e., $30.00, and did not drive between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., they were credited with eight waiting hours. Where these plaintiffs received a partial guarantee, i.e., $15.00, they were credited with eight waiting hours less any driving hours prior to 5:00 p.m. Admiral then reviewed its records to determine if Messrs. Hardmon, Cole, Gomez, Mascarenhas, Idelbi, or Singh had a carry-over job, or a preassigned limousine and job. If one of these factors existed, Admiral assumed that the chauffeur would have no reason to come into the office to wait at...

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