Dunlop v. State of Rhode Island, Civ. A. No. 74-24.

• Decision Date: 04 August 1975
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 74-24.
• Citation: 398 F. Supp. 1269
• Parties: John T. DUNLOP, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor v. The STATE OF RHODE ISLAND and Providence Plantations.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

398 F. Supp. 1269

John T. DUNLOP, Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor v. The STATE OF RHODE ISLAND and Providence Plantations.

Civ. A. No. 74-24.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

August 4, 1975.

William J. Kilberg, Albert H. Ross, and Frank V. McDermott, Jr., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Boston, Mass., for plaintiff.

Julius C. Michaelson, Atty. Gen., R. I., Ronald Dwight, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., R. I., Providence, R. I., for defendant.

OPINION

PETTINE, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court to determine plaintiff's motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff, the Secretary of Labor, United States Department of Labor, has filed suit in his official capacity under 29 U.S.C. § 217 against the State of Rhode Island for injunctive relief to restrain the State as employer at the state-owned O'Rourke Children's Center from committing further violations of the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., and to enjoin the State from further withholding overtime compensation found to be due to certain O'Rourke employees under the Act. The Secretary asserts that summary judgment is appropriate since the identical factual aspects presented in the instant case were already determined against the defendant in Pontarelli v. Spinelli, C.A. No. 4539, unreported opinion (D.R.I. 7/6/72) (Appendix A), judgment vacated on other grounds, No. 72-1304, 72-1305, unreported mem. and order (1st Cir. 5/16/73), and thus, by virtue of the doctrine of collateral estoppel, no factual dispute remains.

The Proceedings in Pontarelli

In Pontarelli v. Spinelli, supra, certain employees of the O'Rourke Children's Center sued the State of Rhode Island and various state officials under § 16 (b) of the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), to recover unpaid overtime compensation assertedly withheld by their employer, the State, in violation of the 1966 amendments to the Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 203, 207 (a)(2). In the Pontarelli opinion, this Court made findings of fact and conclusions of law to the effect that the plaintiffs therein as well as others employed at the Center as "House Parents" and "Senior House Parents" were "employed at a state-owned institution of the type contemplated by the 1966 amendments to the FLSA" (infra at 1277) and that the "standby hours" spent by the two classes of houseparents in excess of their eight hours of active duty were also a part of their job requirements and therefore compensable as overtime within the strictures of the FLSA. The Court enjoined continuation of the employment arrangement which violated the FLSA and, after suggesting a formula to determine past amounts withheld, deferred an accounting of amounts due until conclusion of any appellate review.

The defendants appealed to the First Circuit. On April 18, 1973, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Employees of the Department of Public Health and Welfare of Missouri v. Department of Public Health and Welfare of Missouri, 411 U.S. 279, 93 S.Ct. 1614, 36 L.Ed.2d 251, that an action brought by state employees to compel their employer, the state, to comply with the 1966 Amendments to the FLSA was barred by the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. Concluding that this ruling was directly on point and barred the plaintiffs' action in Pontarelli, the First Circuit vacated this Court's ruling below on Eleventh Amendment grounds and remanded the case with directions that the complaint be dismissed.

The Secretary of Labor instituted the instant action on February 11, 1974, seeking precisely the same relief as that sought in Pontarelli, albeit for a subsequent period of time due to the operation of the applicable statute of limitations, 29 U.S.C. § 255, which restricts recovery to the two-year period preceding commencement of a suit with an additional third year of recovery if a wilful violation is shown. It appears that prospective injunctive relief is no longer required since the State terminated the challenged work arrangement as of January 13, 1973. Plaintiff still seeks to restrain the State from continuing to withhold overtime payments outstanding for the appropriate period, as determined by 29 U.S.C. § 255. The parties have stipulated that:

"All the facts which were presented to the court in the case of Pontarelli, et al. v. Spinelli, et al., Civil Action No. 4539, decided July 6, 1972, are the facts which would be presented to this court in the instant case in the event this latter case went to trial." Stipulation (April 14, 1975).

Eleventh Amendment

The need for prospective relief having been obviated, by his remaining claim in essence the Secretary seeks to recover the overtime payments due individual employees. If successful, it can be anticipated that such monies will eventually be disbursed to the individual employees, among whom were the original plaintiffs barred in Pontarelli. The Court therefore asked the parties to brief the question implicated by these circumstances:

"In view of the fact that any monetary award would come from the general treasury of the State and would be for the benefit of, and would ultimately pass to, the individual employees involved, do the Supreme Court decisions in Employees of the Dept. of Public Health & Welfare v. Dept. of Public Health & Welfare, 411 U.S. 279 93 S.Ct. 1641, 36 L.Ed. 2d 251 (1973) and Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974) require an interpretation of the Eleventh Amendment which would bar an award of damages in this action?" Letter to parties, dated December 23, 1974.

Despite the State's colorful characterization of the within action as a "subterfuge", the Secretary's role herein is not as such an agent of the underpaid employees who may circumvent the Eleventh Amendment. It is clear that the Eleventh Amendment bar of certain suits against the states brought in federal courts does not apply to the United States. United States v. Mississippi, 380 U.S. 128, 140, 85 S.Ct. 808, 13 L.Ed.2d 717 (1965). As the State acknowledges, this action is a suit brought by the United States, see Brennan v. Iowa, 494 F.2d 100 (8th Cir. 1974), cert. denied sub nom., Iowa v. Dunlop, ___ U.S. ___, 95 S.Ct. 2422, 44 L.Ed.2d 683 (1975). In addition, a review of the distinctions between the remedies provided in §§ 16(b) and 17 of the Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 216(b), 217, reveals that the instant action is brought primarily on behalf of the United States "to redress a wrong being done to the public good", Wirtz v. Jones, 340 F.2d 901, 905 (5th Cir. 1965), whose success will produce the necessary but secondary result of reimbursing the underpaid employees in question. As recognized in Wirtz v. Jones, supra, in which the Fifth Circuit explored the genesis of § 17 of the FLSA, 29 U.S.C. § 217:

"The history and purpose of the Fair Labor Standards Act and of § 17, both in its wording and in its relationship to the other sections of the Act, make it abundantly clear that § 17 was designed and enacted as a necessary measure to assure the effective and uniform compliance with and adherence to a public policy, relating to wage standards for labor, adopted in the National interest.

* * * * * *

Unlike a § 16(b) action, in a § 17 action, however, the purpose of the injunction to restrain the withholding of wages due is not to collect a debt owed by an employer to his employee but to correct a continuing offense against the public interest. It is true that as a result, money may pass from the employer into the pocket of the employee or, if he is not available, then into the coffers of the United States, but that enforced payment which must be made even if the employee or his representatives or heirs no longer exist to claim it, is simply a part of a reasonable and effective means . . . to bring about a general compliance with § 15(a)(2) . . . `to serve as a source of protection to employers who pay a decent wage and who must compete with employers who pay a substandard wage.'"

340 F.2d at 903-905 (footnote, citation omitted).

In Employees itself, the Supreme Court recognized a major distinction between the employee cause of action provided by § 16(b) and federal enforcement by the Secretary under § 17. The distinction between the two causes of action was not raised as mere dictum in Employees. To the contrary, it constituted an integral part of the Court's conclusion that it could not infer, as it had done in Parden v. Terminal R. Co., 377 U.S. 184, 192, 84 S.Ct. 1207, 12 L.Ed.2d 233 (1964), with respect to the Federal Employers' Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq., a waiver of Eleventh Amendment and sovereign immunity by a state's engaging in an enterprise covered by the FLSA. In Parden, the Court concluded that:

"To read a `sovereign immunity exception' into the Act would result, moreover, in a right without a remedy; it would mean that Congress made `every' interstate railroad liable in damages to injured employees but left one class of such employees — those whose employers happen to be state owned — without any effective means of enforcing that liability. We are unwilling to conclude that Congress intended so pointless and frustrating a result. We therefore read the FELA as authorizing suit in a Federal District Court against state-owned as well as privately owned common carriers by railroad in interstate commerce." Id. at 190, 84 S.Ct. at 1211 (footnote omitted).

In contrast, the Court in Employees relied precisely upon the Congressional provision for enforcement by the Secretary of Labor in concluding that the Parden analysis did not apply to the issue of state immunity under the FLSA:

"By holding that Congress did not lift the sovereign immunity of the States under the FLSA, we do not make the extension of coverage to state employees meaningless. Cf. Parden v. Terminal R. Co., supra, at 190 84 S.Ct. 1207. Section 16(c) gives the Secretary of Labor authority to bring suit for unpaid minimum wages or

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