Hempfling v. Cmty. Mercy Health Partners
| Decision Date | 29 October 2018 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:17-cv-182 |
| Parties | Judith A. Hempfling, Plaintiff, v. Community Mercy Health Partners, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio |
This matter is before the Court on Defendant Community Mercy Health Partners' Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF 18) and Plaintiff Judith A. Hempfling's Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. (ECF 25) Plaintiff seeks payment of overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Defendant admits to having scheduled and paid Plaintiff for 48 hours every other week, but reasons that because Plaintiff was not constantly occupied for all of those 48 hours, overtime is not due. This is not how overtime works under the FLSA.
Plaintiff Judith A. Hempfling was employed by Defendant Community Mercy Health Centers. Initially, her job title was "RN Hospice After-Hours On-Call" until March 25, 2015, and then "RN Hospice On-Call" after that date. She was paid $36 per hour. (Sprocket Depo., Exhibit 2, pp. 14-15; Tr., p. 92, ll. 5-16.)
Hempfling's normal Mercy schedule as RN Hospice On-Call was 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday to 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, which amounts to 15 hours, and from 8:00 a.m. Saturday to 8:00 a.m. Monday, an additional 48 hours, every other weekend. (Tr., pp. 20-21.) Hempfling was paid hour-for- hour at her hourly rate for all 48 hours of her time. (Tr., p. 128, ll. 17-20.) Hempfling recorded her weekly activities on "activity logs" that she submitted to Mercy. She further recorded both her work activities (office time, patient calls, and patient home visits) and her "on call" time on the activity logs. (DX E and F, Exhibits 3 and 4.)
Hempfling focuses on the every-other-weekend 48-hour shift. Hempfling's weekend shift routine was to arrive at the administrative office, where no patients resided, and to review written reports and listen to phone messages from nurses who had worked the prior shift to update herself about the patients. (Tr., pp. 22-24, 32, 34.) She normally would stay in the office until 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. before she went on the road to visit patients (i.e., two to three hours after arriving at 8:00 a.m.). (Tr., p. 25, l. 23; p. 27.) She was not required to spend any minimum amount of time at the administrative office. (Tr., pp. 34, 53.) When notified of a need for patient care while Hempfling was on call during the weekend shifts, Hempfling would visit patients at their homes, document patient issues, take phone calls from doctors, labs, or relatives in regard to patients, and triage which patients needed attention during her shift. (Tr., p. 34, ll. 5-13; p. 35.)
Hempfling communicated with patients using her cellular phone when patients did not text or email her. (Tr., pp. 35-36.) Patients would call her directly. (Tr., p. 35, ll. 21-24.) Phone calls throughout the day would typically take 5 or 10 minutes and Hempfling estimates she would receive over 100 phone calls during the weekend shift. (Tr., p. 69, ll. 5-11; p. 70.) The available Verizon logs of Hempfling's calls establish that for the 23 full 48-hour weekend shifts covered by the Verizon data, Hempfling made 111 calls per weekend, for an average of 3.4 minutes per call, which amounts to 6.3 hours of calls throughout a weekend. (Banner Affidavit, Exhibit 5, with attached Exhibits 6-10.)
Hempfling typically averaged 8 to 10 patient home visits over the weekend that would take 30 to 45 minutes each. (Tr., p. 70, ll. 4-8; p. 71, ll. 2-6.)
Throughout the weekend, Hempfling was to be available. Human Resources Director Bess Sprocket clarified the dual nature of Hempfling's weekend shifts: "They had a schedule to work the weekend and be ready to work, if not at the office, to be on call." (Sprockett Depo., pp. 22-23.) Thus, Hempfling was paid her full hourly rate for on-call time. (Id., p. 72.)
At the beginning of Hempfling's weekend shifts, the night nurse would switch the phone over from the switchboard to Hempfling's cellular phone so that she could remain mobile for the rest of her weekend shift. (Tr., pp. 22-23, 36, 41.) Further, no mileage restrictions existed in regard to where Hempfling could travel during the weekend shift, but typically she would stay within a 12- mile radius from her home. (Tr., pp. 64-65.) She primarily stayed within the Springfield/Urbana, Ohio area. (Tr., p. 72.) And, except for clocking in and out at the beginning and at the end of her weekend shift, Hempfling did not punch in and out when she left the office or patients' homes.
When Hempfling was not actually carrying out her job responsibilities during the weekend shifts, she could sleep or otherwise perform personal activities such as grocery shopping, walking, reading, watching television, eating, or talking with friends and family. (Tr., pp. 55-57, 62-64.) She engaged in these personal activities throughout the weekend shifts at her discretion. (Tr., pp. 63-64, 73.)
Hempfling worked alone with patients both during her weekend and weekday shifts. (Tr., p. 42; p. 43, ll. 12-16, p. 44, ll. 19-22; p. 88, ll. 5-11.). If she became busy, she had a backup supervisor and a LPN and crisis care nurse who worked 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day of the weekend to assist her if necessary. (Tr., pp. 28, 41-42.) If Hempfling did not answer her phone call within about 10 minutes, the operator would give the patient the option of calling the backup supervisor or one of her colleagues. (Tr., pp. 67-68.) Hempfling otherwise had complete discretion to triage the importance of any call. (Tr., pp. 59-61.) She also had the flexibility of following up on patient calls within one hour. (Tr., p. 58.) She did not have to monitor a radio for calls and was not required to leave a number where she could be reached if she had to go out of the area. (Tr., pp. 71-72.)
When Hempfling was not in the office or visiting patients, she was either working at home doing all of the other elements of her job such as telephone calls and paperwork, or she was engaging in personal activities. (Tr., p. 52; p. 53, ll. 1-9; pp. 55-58.) No work rule existed prohibiting her from engaging in personal endeavors during her weekend shift. (Tr., p. 57, ll. 2-5.) The amount of calls she would make and receive and the paperwork she filled out varied with the demands of the patients on a given day. (Tr., p. 52.) She had discretion within her shift to determine how much and what she did. (Tr., pp. 55, 60, 73.) She spent at least 8 hours a day at home. (Tr., p. 61.) Most of the time, she had at least a 20-minute uninterrupted lunch break and could take intermittent breaks during the day. (Tr., p. 74, ll. 11-15; p. 76, ll. 4-13.) And if it was not busy during the night, Hempfling could sleep until morning. (Tr., p. 45, ll. 15-18; p. 55, ll. 1-10.)
Hempfling recorded her weekend shift activities on the activity logs she submitted to Mercy. She recorded her work activities (office time, patient calls, and patient home visits) on the activity logs, and the rest of the time was recorded by her, in her own writing, as "on call" time. She documented "paperwork" 176 times, "calls" 142 times, and "orientation" 9 times during the claim period, in addition to logging patient visits by name. (Banner Depo., Exhibit 14, PX 1, Exhibit 15.)
If one were to subtract out the on-call time that Hempfling recorded on her activity logs, the time during the alternative weeks she was on a weekend shift added up to 25.4 hours per week on average. (Banner Depo., Exhibit 14, pp. 10-11; PX 2, 3 and 4; Exhibits 16, 17 and 18.)
Hempfling's job was outsourced to Dayton Hospice in October of 2016. On March 24, 2017, Plaintiff filed this claim seeking liquidated damages, attorney's fees, and an extra year of overtime pay for willfully failing to pay overtime. (ECF 1) Defendant Mercy Health Partners filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. (ECF 18) Plaintiff Judith A. Hempfling filed a Cross Motion for Summary Judgment. (ECF 25)
The standard of review applicable to motions for summary judgment is established by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 and associated case law. Rule 56 provides that summary judgment "shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the 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. at 56(c). Alternatively, summary judgment is denied "[i]f there are any genuine factual issues that properly can be resolved only by a finder of fact because they may reasonably be resolved in favor of either party." Hancock v. Dodson, 958 F.2d 1367, 1374 (6th Cir. 1992) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986)). Thus, summary judgment must be entered "against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986).
The party seeking summary judgment has the initial burden of informing the court of the basis for its motion, and identifying those portions of the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions and affidavits which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Id., at 323. The burden then shifts to the nonmoving par...
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