Dees v. Hydradry Inc, Case No. 8:09-cv-1405-T-23TBM.
Decision Date | 19 April 2010 |
Docket Number | Case No. 8:09-cv-1405-T-23TBM. |
Citation | 706 F.Supp.2d 1227 |
Parties | John DEES, Plaintiff,v.HYDRADRY, INC., et al., Defendants. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida |
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Carlos V. Leach, Morgan & Morgan, PA, Orlando, FL, for Plaintiff.
Richard W. Smith, Fisher, Rushmer, Werrenrath, Dickson, Talley, & Dunlap, PA, for Defendant.
John Dees sues (Doc. 1) his former employer to recover overtime compensation due under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. (the “FLSA”). The parties announce a settlement and submit a “Joint Stipulation for Dismissal With Prejudice.” (Doc. 13) Although a private settlement and stipulation for dismissal ends the typical case without judicial intervention, the Eleventh Circuit requires the district court to review the settlement of an FLSA claim. See Lynn's Food Stores, Inc. v. United States, 679 F.2d 1350 (11th Cir.1982).1 The congressional purpose of the FLSA and the public's interest in the transparency of the judicial process decisively inform both the procedure and the standard applicable to a district court's review of an FLSA settlement.
The FLSA embodies a congressional intent to ensure that “all our able-bodied working men and women [receive] a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.” Letter to Congress from President Franklin D. Roosevelt (May 24, 1937) (reprinted in H.R.Rep. No. 101-260 (Sept. 26, 1989), 1989 U.S.C.C.A.N. 696-97). By enacting the FLSA, Congress sought “to protect certain groups of the population from substandard wages and excessive hours which endangered the national health and well-being and the free flow of goods in interstate commerce.” 2 Brooklyn Sav. Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 706, 65 S.Ct. 895, 89 L.Ed. 1296 (1945). Combatting the typically unequal bargaining power between employer and employee, the FLSA imposes both a minimum wage and an overtime wage for each of several categories of employee. See 29 U.S.C. § 206 ( ); 29 U.S.C. § 207 ( ). To ensure compliance with the overtime and minimum wage provisions, the FLSA permits an employee to sue his employer to recover unpaid wages, an additional and equal amount as liquidated damages, and a reasonable attorney's fee.3
The FLSA prohibits a private agreement altering an employee's right to a minimum wage and overtime. For example, the employer and the employee may not agree for the employee to work prospectively for an overtime rate of one-and-a-quarter times the regular hourly rate; the FLSA requires one-and-a-half times the regular hourly rate. Although prohibiting a contract that restricts the FLSA rights of an employee, the FLSA leaves unanswered whether an employee may compromise a claim for unpaid wages.4
The Supreme Court first addressed the issue of compromise and waiver of FLSA rights in Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O'Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 65 S.Ct. 895, 89 L.Ed. 1296 (1945), in which the bank employed O'Neil as a night watchman for approximately two years but failed to pay O'Neil $423.16 for overtime wages due under the FLSA. Two years after O'Neil ceased his employment, the bank offered O'Neil $423.16 in exchange for O'Neil's releasing his rights under the FLSA. The parties disputed neither the amount of wages owed nor the bank's status as a covered employer under the FLSA. O'Neil signed the release but later sued the bank to recover liquidated damages. Enforcing the release, the trial court dismissed O'Neil's claim.
Invalidating the release Brooklyn Savings Bank holds that an employee who accepts delayed payment of wages due under the FLSA may not waive the right to recover liquidated damages. Focusing on the absence of evidence that the release “was obtained as a result of the settlement of a bona fide dispute between the parties with respect to coverage or amount,” Brooklyn Savings Bank finds that the release “constituted a mere waiver of [O'Neil's] right to liquidated damages.” 324 U.S. at 703, 65 S.Ct. 895. O'Neil's waiver contravened the congressional policy implemented by the FLSA:
324 U.S. at 705-08, 65 S.Ct. 895 (citations and footnotes omitted). Brooklyn Savings Bank declines to determine the validity of a private agreement that settles a bona fide dispute over an FLSA claim.
One year later D.A. Schulte v. Gangi, 328 U.S. 108, 114, 66 S.Ct. 925, 90 L.Ed. 1114 (1946), broadened the holding in Brooklyn Savings Bank and held that “the remedy of liquidated damages cannot be bargained away by bona fide settlements of disputes over coverage.” 5 In Gangi, several maintenance employees worked for the owner of an office building in New York City. Following Kirschbaum v. Walling, 316 U.S. 517, 62 S.Ct. 1116, 86 L.Ed. 1638 (1942), which holds that the FLSA covers maintenance employees in a building occupied by a manufacturer producing goods for interstate commerce, the employees in Gangi demanded unpaid overtime wages and liquidated damages from their employer. Because the employees in Gangi worked in a building whose tenants shipped no goods in interstate commerce, the employer disputed the employees' right to overtime pay. Under threat of suit, however, the employer fully compensated the employees for unpaid overtime due under the FLSA in exchange for a release from any further FLSA claim.
After signing a release, the employees sued to recover liquidated damages. Despite the parties' bona fide dispute whether the FLSA covered the employer, the Supreme Court refused to enforce the release:
328 U.S. at 115-16, 66 S.Ct. 925. Thus Gangi offers an employer that disputes FLSA coverage only two choices. The employer must either (1) pay employees the disputed wage or (2) litigate the coverage issue and risk paying liquidated damages in addition to the unpaid wage. The employer may not privately resolve the coverage issue by compromising with an individual employee. Although prohibiting purely private compromise, Brooklyn Savings Bank and Gangi leave unanswered whether an...
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