Dove v. Coupe

• Decision Date: 09 April 1985
• Docket Number: Nos. 84-5047,84-5048,s. 84-5047
• Parties: 27 Wage & Hour Cas. (BN 185, 245 U.S.App.D.C. 147, 102 Lab.Cas. P 34,657 William DOVE, et al. v. George A. COUPE, et al., Appellants. James Dovean JEWELL v. George A. COUPE, d/b/a Admiral Limousine Service, et al., Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 167

759 F.2d 167

27 Wage & Hour Cas. (BN 185, 245 U.S.App.D.C. 147,

102 Lab.Cas. P 34,657

William DOVE, et al. v. George A. COUPE, et al., Appellants.

James Dovean JEWELL v. George A. COUPE, d/b/a Admiral Limousine Service, et al., Appellants.

Nos. 84-5047, 84-5048.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Jan. 17, 1985.

Decided April 9, 1985.

Jeffrey L. Berger, Washington, D.C., with whom Edward R. Levin, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for appellants.

Sydney E. Rab, Washington, D.C., for appellees.

Edward M. Statland, Washington, D.C., entered an appearance for appellees.

Before WRIGHT, WALD and GINSBURG, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal from three judgments awarding minimum wage and overtime compensation. Dove v. Coupe, No. 81-3032 (D.D.C. Dec. 21, 1983) [hereinafter cited as Magistrate's Decision]. The appeal centrally raises the question whether the workweek as a whole, or each individual hour within the workweek, is the relevant unit for determining compliance with the minimum wage prescriptions of federal and local law. Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 206(a) (1982); District of Columbia Minimum Wage Act, D.C.CODE ANN. Sec. 36-203(a) (1981). The appeal further presents issues concerning the calculation of overtime compensation under District of Columbia law, see D.C. CODE ANN. Sec. 36-203(b) (1981), ¹ and entitlement to liquidated damages under virtually identical federal and local provisions. 29 U.S.C. Secs. 216(b), 260 (1982); D.C.CODE ANN. Sec. 36-215(a) (1981). We conclude that in this case, involving a single job (limousine driving), the relevant period is the workweek, not the individual hour. We therefore vacate two of the three judgments and remand for reconsideration of those dispositions in part.

I.

Plaintiff-appellees are William Dove, Samuel W. Pinner, Jr., and James Dovean Jewell, individuals who worked as drivers for Admiral Limousine Service (Admiral). Dove and Pinner claimed that in the years 1979, 1980, and 1981, Admiral failed to pay them the minimum wages and overtime compensation to which they were entitled. Jewell claimed that Admiral owed him overtime compensation for work he performed in the years 1979 and 1980. Defendant-appellants are George A. Coupe and Bernard Resnick, owners of Admiral; ² they contest the judgments rendered in favor of each of the plaintiff-appellees by the federal magistrate to whom the case was referred for trial. See 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636 (1982).

We find no reversible error in the disposition of Jewell's claim and therefore affirm the judgment in his favor for overtime compensation and liquidated damages in all respects. We vacate the judgments for Dove and Pinner because the magistrate's calculations erroneously base the minimum wage determination on an hour-by-hour rather than a workweek standard. We hold, however, that the magistrate did not err in awarding liquidated damages to Dove and Pinner; we affirm his determination on that issue, and instruct that the entitlement of Dove and Pinner to liquidated damages is not open for renewed challenge by Admiral on remand.

II.

In the period at issue, 1979-1981, drivers Dove and Pinner were expected to report to the premises of their employer Admiral at 8:30 a.m., and to wait there until they received a driving assignment. They were not permitted to conduct personal business while waiting, but they were allowed half an hour off for lunch. Admiral maintained this waiting time arrangement so that it would have a pool of ready drivers on its premises to meet the unpredictable number of calls it received for service. If Dove and Pinner did not receive a driving assignment by 5:00 p.m., as sometimes occurred, they were then allowed to end their workday. Magistrate's Decision at 3, 19, 26-27.

Dove and Pinner were compensated in three ways. First, if they arrived by 8:30 a.m., and received no assignment or an assignment that began after 5:00 p.m., they were paid a "guarantee." The guarantee was twenty dollars a day until September 1981, when it was raised to thirty dollars a day. ³ Second, if they received an assignment, they were paid a "driver's share" of the fare. The driver's share was one-third of the hourly rate paid by the customer until September 1981, when it became a flat hourly rate. If the driver's share was less than the guarantee, the drivers were paid the guarantee. Finally, tips charged to the customers were added to the drivers' paychecks. Typically, the tips were fifteen percent of the fare; tips were received on seventy percent of the assignments. Id. at 27-28.

Most days, Dove and Pinner received a driving assignment before 5:00 p.m., and their driver's share exceeded the guarantee. On such days, their pay was calculated solely on the basis of driving time. If a six-hour driving assignment yielded a forty-five-dollar driver's share, plus tip, the driver earned this same amount whether the assignment began at 9:00 a.m. or at 4:00 p.m. To secure eligibility for the guarantee in the event that no or only brief assignments came in, however, Dove and Pinner had to arrive at Admiral's premises by 8:30 a.m. Id.

Jewell's arrangement was different. He was not required to report to work. Instead, he proceeded directly from his home to his driving assignment. His compensation included only his driver's share and tips; the terms of his employment made him ineligible for the guarantee. Id. at 17.

Dove and Pinner, on days when they received no driving assignment, waited eight hours. When they obtained a driving assignment, their workday, waiting period plus driving period, often exceeded eight hours. Both worked on weekends. Their workweek, according to their estimates, generally ran well above forty hours. Jewell worked irregular hours. According to his testimony, which the magistrate found credible, he worked for Admiral twenty-five to thirty weeks a year and averaged sixty-five hours per week. No overtime compensation was paid to these drivers. Id. at 3, 13, 17, 29.

Admiral kept daily records of the guarantee, driver's share, and tips. Drivers were given the opportunity to correct inaccurate daily records when they received their weekly pay. Admiral also maintained payroll records that were, in effect, a second set of books. It re-calculated hours backward from compensation, assuming an arbitrary rate of pay exceeding the minimum wage and allowing time-and-a-half for overtime. It then reported these figures to the authorities as actual hours worked. Because the arbitrary rate of pay was relatively low, reported hours worked often ran high. For example, Admiral once reported that Pinner had worked a 157-hour week, or over twenty-two hours a day. The drivers testified that the payroll figures thus used in official reports were inaccurate. A representative of the District of Columbia Wage Board examined Admiral's records in 1981; she was not told, in the course of the examination or thereafter, that the hours recorded were artificial. Id. at 4-16, 21 n.8.

In December 1981, Dove filed a complaint against Admiral seeking damages for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 201-219 (1982), and the District of Columbia Minimum Wage Act, D.C.CODE ANN. Secs. 36-201 to -219 (1981). Pinner intervened in Dove's action. Jewell filed a separate complaint, which was consolidated with the Dove and Pinner action.

In December 1983, the magistrate who presided at the trial issued a detailed and thorough opinion. He awarded Dove and Pinner the minimum wage for their waiting time, without regard to the compensation they had received for driving time. Magistrate's Decision at 48-51, 56-58. He held all three plaintiffs entitled to time-and-a-half for overtime, and to liquidated damages. Id. at 42, 51-56, 58-62. In calculating the awards, the magistrate credited the testimony of Dove and Pinner that, generally, waiting time equaled time spent driving. Id. at 47-48. He decreed judgments of $27,234.40 for Dove, $37,147.66 for Pinner, and $2,650.16 for Jewell.

Appealing from these judgments, Admiral first asserts that Dove and Pinner should not have been awarded minimum wages for each hour of waiting time; instead, Admiral contends, all wages earned in the week should have been averaged to determine minimum wage compliance. Second, Admiral now urges that, for the purpose of determining weekly hours and compensation due for those hours, Admiral's work records provide a basis for calculation more reliable than the sources used by the magistrate. Finally, Admiral argues that it should not be held liable for liquidated damages. We consider each of Admiral's points in turn.

III.

As earlier explained, Dove and Pinner received a guaranteed amount for days when they reported to work at 8:30 a.m. but received no or only short driving assignments prior to 5:00 p.m. If their compensation for driving time exceeded the guarantee, they received only that pay, and no separate compensation for waiting. Except for two months in 1981, the guarantee for the period in question was less than eight hours' pay at the minimum wage. ⁴

For days on which Dove and Pinner received the guarantee, the magistrate awarded them minimum wage compensation for the amount by which eight hours' pay at the minimum wage exceeded the guarantee. For waiting time on days when they did not receive the guarantee, the magistrate awarded Dove and Pinner the minimum wage. Admiral argues that it did not violate the minimum wage laws in weeks when total compensation exceeded total hours worked multiplied by the minimum wage, even though specific hours worked during those weeks may have been attributed no wage or less than the minimum wage. Admiral claims, in short, that the workweek is the unit for determining its compliance with minimum wage provisions. The drivers assert that the work hour, not the workweek, is the...