Eggleston v. City of Binghamton
| Decision Date | 02 September 2020 |
| Docket Number | 3:20-CV-56 |
| Parties | DAVID EGGLESTON and WILLIAM YEAGER, Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF BINGHAMTON and CLARENCE E. SHAGER, JR., Individually, also known as Chuck, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York |
APPEARANCES:
HINMAN, HOWARD LAW FIRM
Attorneys for Plaintiffs
DAWN J. LANOUETTE, ESQ.
MICHAEL D. BILLOK, ESQ.
MEMORANDUM-DECISION and ORDER
On January 15, 2020, plaintiffs David Eggleston ("Eggleston") and William Yeager ("Yeager") (collectively "plaintiffs") filed this action against the City of Binghamton (the "City") and City Comptroller Clarence E. Shager, Jr. ("Shager"). Eggleston, who recently retired as an Assistant Chief of Police, and Yeager, who is still employed as an Assistant Chief, allege that the City and Shager (collectively "defendants") violated the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") and related state law by refusing to credit them for certain overtime and holiday pay. Defendants have moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 12(b)(6) to dismiss the complaint in its entirety. The motion has been fully briefed and will be considered on the basis of the submissions without oral argument.
The following facts are taken from plaintiffs' operative pleading, Dkt. No. 1, and are assumed true for the purpose of deciding the motion to dismiss.
Beginning in 2008, Eggleston and Yeager took on the role of Assistant Chiefs of Police for the City of Binghamton. Compl. ¶¶ 3, 5. Plaintiffs worked a weekday schedule of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. that did not include any break for lunch. Id. ¶ 28. According to plaintiffs, the City treated all eight hours of this lunch-less work schedule as an "hour worked" for the purpose of calculating pay and leave accrual. See id. ¶ 29. As plaintiffs explain, the nature of plaintiffs' work as Assistant Chiefs made it impractical to "dedicate a specific block of time in any workday to ignoring their police responsibilities." Id.
Until 2010, plaintiffs were covered by a collective bargaining agreement ("CBA") between the City and the Police Benevolent Association ("PBA"), the bargaining unit for most of the other officers on the force. Compl. ¶ 20. As relevant here, the CBA provided for two forms of "compensatory time." Id. ¶¶ 21-24. Also known as "comp time," compensatory time is a specified period of paid leave that an employer awards in lieu of paying a higher overtime rate that would otherwise be applicable. Id. Once earned, this "comp time" could be carried over from year to year with approval from the Chief of Police. Id.
First, the CBA provided that two full days of "comp time" would accrue whenever an Assistant Chief worked a designated holiday. Compl. ¶ 21. Second, the CBA provided that any employee could accrue one and one-half hours of "comp time" for each hour worked overtime; i.e., any work assignment beyond that employee's scheduled work shift. Id. ¶ 23. Although the "comp time" for holidays was awarded as of right, the "comp time" for overtime was apparently awarded at the Chief's discretion. Id.
According to the complaint, the Chief directed plaintiffs and other officers "to bank and use comp time in lieu of being paid overtime, for budgetary reasons." Compl. ¶ 23. Plaintiffs allege that during this period they (and other officers) "routinely were allowed to and did carry over more than 80 hours of comp time per year." Id. ¶ 25. Plaintiffs further allege that during this period the City "paid out accrued comp time to employees upon their termination from employment," whether or not this accrued time exceeded eighty hours.1 Id. ¶¶ 26-27.
In 2010, an administrative determination by the New York State Public Employment Relations Board ("PERB") concluded that Eggleston and Yeager were managerial employees and removed them from the PBA. See Compl. ¶ 30. Consequently, plaintiffs stood to lose out on certain employment benefits that the other, non-managerial police officers would continue to enjoy as part of the police union. Id. According to plaintiffs, they agreed not to appeal the PERB's determination about their status in exchange for certain guarantees from the City that "their terms and conditions of employment as existed under the CBA would continue with a few exceptions." Id. ¶ 31.
Plaintiffs allege that some of these guarantees were recorded in contemporaneouschanges to the City's Code while others "were confirmed by the continued practices" of defendants. Compl. ¶ 31. In particular, these guarantees included: (a) a roughly $4000 increase in annual salary accompanied by a "modified comp time formula" that, upon approval by the Chief, permitted an Assistant Chief to "earn one day, at straight time, of comp time that would be banked" in the City's records; (b) continued eligibility for overtime that could be banked as "comp time" with the Chief's approval; (c) a continued weekday schedule of 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with no lunch break; (d) the ability to carry over accrued "comp time" from year to year; and (e) the promise that unused "comp time" would be paid out by the City upon retirement or separation from employment. Id.
Despite these guarantees, in 2011 the City added a new provision to its Code that "purported to amend the Assistant Chief's workday to be eight (8) hours per day, not including one (1) hour for lunch." Compl. ¶ 32 (internal quotation marks omitted). According to plaintiffs, the City added this forced-lunch language to its Code based on its "belief that it was consistent with rule or law of the State of New York." Id. ¶ 33.
Notably, however, plaintiffs allege that the City never tried to put into practice what it put down on paper. Compl. ¶¶ 33-35. Plaintiffs allege the City never advised the Police Bureau, the City, or either of them about this new lunch requirement. Id. Equally important, plaintiffs allege the City never made any attempt to enforce this requirement against them, either. Id. ¶¶ 33, 35. Instead, even after their 2010 removal from the PBA, plaintiffs continued to use and accrue "comp time" with the express approval of the Chief. Id. ¶ 38.
Everything was fine until April 2019, when Eggleston notified the City of his intent to retire and requested an estimate of his separation benefits. Compl. ¶ 37. Although Eggleston believed this estimate would include a substantial dollar amount for all the unused"comp time" he had accrued over his years of service, the City decided it was not going to pay him for any of that accrued time. Id. Instead, defendants "advised for the first time that Assistant Chiefs were not eligible for comp time . . . because comp time is not expressly identified as a term or condition of employment" in the City's Charter and Code. Id. ¶ 38. Defendants further advised that plaintiffs "would not in any way be compensated for the comp time that had been designated and approved by the Chief" and "memorialized in [the] City's financial records." Id. ¶ 39.
Thereafter, the City instructed plaintiffs to change their work schedule to a nine-hour workday that would now include the non-working lunch hour that had been required under the Code since 2011. Compl. ¶ 41. Plaintiffs allege "no other City employee with a schedule that did not permit them an uninterrupted lunch was required to change their schedule or take lunch." Id. ¶ 42. Plaintiffs further allege the City threatened to notify the State of New York that they had not been taking these lunch breaks unless plaintiffs agreed to abandon their claims for earned and banked "comp time." Id. ¶ 43. According to plaintiffs, City officials told them that they "hope[d]" the State would penalize plaintiffs and force them to reimburse the City for those unused lunch hours. Id.
Since the City refused to pay him out for his accrued time, between April 2019 and his retirement on July 12, 2019, Eggleston—with the knowledge, consent, and approval of the Chief—used up all the "comp time" he had earned and that was banked in the City's records. Compl. ¶ 46. According to plaintiffs' complaint, the City retaliated against Eggleston's lawful use of this "comp time" by deducting roughly $9,672.59 "from the accrued but unused vacation pay" that was also owed to him. Id. ¶ 47. Eggleston has demanded reimbursement of that sum, but the City has refused to pay. Id. ¶ 48.
Yeager, who still works for the City as an Assistant Chief, "has continued to use a portion of the comp time that had been earned and that was and is banked" in the City's financial records. Compl. ¶ 49. However, Yeager has been told by the City that he must reimburse defendants "in the amount of the value of said used comp time, and that any remaining comp time . . . has been or will be forfeited." Id. ¶ 50-51.
"To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the '[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.'" Forjone v. Dep't of Motor Vehicles, 414 F. Supp. 3d 292, 298 (N.D.N.Y. 2019) (quoting Ginsburg v. City of Ithaca, 839 F. Supp. 2d 537, 540 (N.D.N.Y. 2012)). "Dismissal is appropriate only where plaintiff has failed to provide some basis for the allegations that support the elements of his claims." Id.
"When ruling on a motion to dismiss, the court must accept as true all of the factual allegations contained in the complaint and draw all reasonable inferences in the non-movant's favor." United States v. Bedi, 318 F. Supp. 3d 561, 564-65 (N.D.N.Y. 2018) (citation omitted). "In making this determination, a court generally confines itself to the facts stated on the face of the complaint, . . . documents appended to the complaint or incorporated in the complaint by reference, and . . . matters of which judicial notice may be taken." Forjone, 414 F. Supp. 3d at 298 (...
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