Hasken v. City of Louisville

• Decision Date: 01 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A. 3:00CV-546-S.,CIV.A. 3:00CV-546-S.
• Citation: 173 F.Supp.2d 654
• Parties: Michael HASKEN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF LOUISVILLE, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Kentucky

173 F.Supp.2d 654

Michael HASKEN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF LOUISVILLE, Defendant.

No. CIV.A. 3:00CV-546-S.

United States District Court, W.D. Kentucky, at Louisville.

March 1, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ann B. Oldfather, Oldfather & Morris, Louisville, KY, for plaintiffs.

Denise L. St. Clair, J. Michael Brown, Sr., Edwin S. Hopson, Mitzi Denise Wyrick, Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, Louisville, KY, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

SIMPSON, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the court for consideration of the motion of the defendant, the City of Louisville ("City"), for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(c) or, in the alternative, for summary judgment pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 56. The City makes several arguments in support of its motion, each of which will be discussed below.

BACKGROUND

This case involves the method by which City firefighters have been compensated over the last several years pursuant to a series of Collective Bargaining Agreements ("CBAs") between the City and the Louisville Professional Firefighters Association, Local Union 345, IAFF AFL-CIO-CLC ("Union"). The plaintiffs, two retired City firefighters, claim that by miscalculating their hourly rate of pay for purposes of determining overtime compensation, the City has underpaid its firefighters in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et seq. ("F.L.S.A."), and Kentucky wage and hour laws, Ky.Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 337.010-.550 ("KRS § 337"). The plaintiffs also allege that because these statutes were implicitly incorporated into the various CBAs, the City is additionally liable under a common law breach of contract theory.

The pleadings and motions filed in this matter indicate that several facts are undisputed:

1. City firefighters generally work a 24 hour day and then are off duty 48 hours before working another 24 hour day. As a result, in a given seven-day week, a firefighter typically works either 48 or 72 hours.

2. The amount of time a firefighter works in excess of 40 hours per week because of this schedule is considered "scheduled overtime."

3. In addition to scheduled overtime, a firefighter may choose to work additional overtime hours, over and above his or her scheduled hours, referred to as "unscheduled overtime."

4. City firefighters are paid an annual salary which compensates them for forty hours of work per week. Firefighters are also paid "other categories of compensation" which include various salary supplements such as "education incentive pay" and "longevity pay." See Pls.' Resp. at 1-2 (DN 51).

5. For overtime hours worked, firefighters are paid one and a half times their "hourly rate of pay." The CBA fails to state the method by which a firefighter's hourly rate of pay is to be calculated.

6. The City's practice in the past has been to include the salary supplements, including those mentioned above, in calculating a firefighter's hourly rate of pay for unscheduled overtime but not in its calculation of compensation for scheduled overtime.

Based on these facts, the plaintiffs claim that by failing to include the various supplements in its calculation of the hourly rate of pay for scheduled overtime, the City has underpaid the plaintiffs and other similarly situated firefighters for the past several years. According to the plaintiffs, this underpayment violates the F.L.S.A. and KRS § 337. The plaintiffs also contend that the City has breached its contract by violating these statutes.

The City's motion is captioned, "Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings and/or for Summary Judgment or, in the alternative, for Stay of Proceedings." In it, the City makes the following requests of this court: (1) Dismiss the plaintiffs' entire Complaint, or, in the alternative, stay proceedings in this matter out of deference to an allegedly ongoing state administrative investigation; (2) Dismiss Count II of the plaintiffs' Complaint with respect to all plaintiffs whose claims are time barred by the F.L.S.A. statute of limitations; (3) Dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction Counts I and III of the plaintiffs' Complaint.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We must first determine whether to review the City's motion under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56 ("Rule 56") or under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(c) ("Rule 12(c)"). Rule 12(c) states that "[a]fter the pleadings are closed but within such time as not to delay the trial, any party may move for judgment on the pleadings." Because the pleadings are closed in this matter, it appears that it would be proper for this court to review the City's motion as a Rule 12(c) motion. However, Rule 12(c) continues:

If, on a motion for judgment on the pleadings, matters outside the pleadings are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion shall be treated as one for summary judgment and disposed of as provided in Rule 56, and all parties shall be given reasonable opportunity to present all material made pertinent to such a motion by Rule 56.

Along with its motion and memorandum in support thereof, the City submitted the affidavit of Nesa Hall, Assistant Director of Human Resources for the City of Louisville ("Ms.Hall"). Attached as exhibits to her affidavit are the current CBA between the City and the Union, a Courier-Journal newspaper article, correspondence between various individuals, and a partial list¹ of individuals who wish to join the plaintiffs' action should it be certified as a class action and their respective dates of employment as City firefighters. Our consideration of matters outside the pleadings would normally convert the City's motion to a Rule 56 motion for summary judgment. See Salehpour v. University of Tennessee, 159 F.3d 199, 204 (6th Cir. 1998). However, materials that are "referred to" in the plaintiffs' complaint and which are "central to the plaintiffs' claim" may be considered part of the pleadings for the purpose of a Rule 12(b) motion. See Greenberg v. Life Ins. Co. of Virginia, 177 F.3d 507, 514 (6th Cir.1999). Therefore, it may be proper for us to consider the CBA and the newspaper article without converting the City's motion to a motion for summary judgment. See Compl. at ¶¶ 21, 22, 27. As discussed below, however, it is unnecessary for us to make this determination.

The interest in allowing a nonmoving party to respond with its own exhibits and affidavits to a Rule 12(c) motion which has been converted to a Rule 56 motion is not implicated in this matter. As discussed below, we will grant only that part of the City's motion which concerns this court's subject matter jurisdiction over Count III of the plaintiffs' Complaint. Because our dismissal of Count III is based solely on the pleadings filed by the parties, withholding judgment until the plaintiffs supplement their briefs with supporting affidavits or exhibits is unnecessary. With regard to Counts I and II, the plaintiffs are in no way prejudiced by their inability to supplement their briefs pursuant to Rule 56.² Therefore, because the City's motion will be analyzed as both a motion for judgment on the pleadings and a motion for summary judgment, we must set forth the standards of review for both Rule 12(c) and Rule 56.

"For purposes of a motion for judgment on the pleadings, all well-pleaded material allegations of the pleadings of the opposing party must be taken as true, and the motion may be granted only if the moving party is nevertheless clearly entitled to judgment." Southern Ohio Bank v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 479 F.2d 478, 480 (6th Cir.1973) (citation omitted). "The motion is granted when no material issue of fact exists and the party making the motion is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." U.S. v. Moriarty, 8 F.3d 329, 332 (6th Cir.1993) (citations omitted).

A motion for summary judgment will be granted only when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). According to the Supreme Court, the standard is "whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202, (1986).

DISCUSSION

I. Abstention³

The City argues that because the plaintiffs' claims are currently under investigation by "the administrative body charged by the Commonwealth with the authority to do so," we should defer to that administrative agency and abstain from reviewing the plaintiffs' Complaint, at least until that investigation is completed. See Def.'s Mem. in Supp. at 8 (DN 24). On the record before us, however, we do not believe that either abstention or a stay of proceedings is appropriate.

The City first contends that under the authority of Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. U.S., 424 U.S. 800, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976), abstention on the part of this court is proper.⁴ However, in order for a party to invoke the Colorado River doctrine, there must exist a "parallel, state proceeding." Crawley v. Hamilton County Com'rs, 744 F.2d 28, 31 (6th Cir.1984). Without such a parallel proceeding, considerations such as piecemeal adjudication, duplicative litigation, and the misallocation of judicial resources with which the Colorado River Court was concerned are not implicated. See Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 817, 96 S.Ct. 1236.

Here, there is no such parallel state proceeding. In the affidavit and accompanying exhibits filed with the City's motion there are references to a "complaint" filed with the Kentucky Labor Cabinet ("the Cabinet") and an ongoing "investigation." See Affidavit of Ms. Hall at ¶ 7, Ex. 3. However, we do not understand the Colorado River doctrine to extend to state administrative proceedings. Neither the decisions cited...