Ingram v. City of Charleston, 18251
| Decision Date | 16 December 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 18251,18251 |
| Citation | 376 S.E.2d 327,180 W.Va. 313 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | , 29 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 226, 115 Lab.Cas. P 56,223 James C. INGRAM, Sr., et al. v. CITY OF CHARLESTON, a Municipal Corporation. Carl E. BEAVER, et al. v. CITY OF CHARLESTON. |
Syllabus by the Court
"[T]he provisions of our wage and hour law, W.Va.Code, 21-5C-3(a), will be satisfied where: (1) firefighters know in advance their regular hourly rate of pay, their average number of weekly hours to be worked each week, including a definite number of overtime hours over the forty-hour regular workweek, and their total annual salary; and (2) the forty regular hours when multiplied by the regular rate of pay is combined with the overtime hours scheduled to be worked each week compensated at one and one-half times the regular rate of pay and this sum when annualized equals the stated annual pay." Pullano v. City of Bluefield, 176 W.Va. 198, 209, 342 S.E.2d 164, 175 (1986).
Grant Crandall, William D. Turner, Crandall & Pyles, Charleston, for Ingram and Bever.
W. Warren Upton, Albert F. Sebok, Jackson & Kelly, Charleston, for City of Charleston.
This is an appeal by James C. Ingram, Sr. and other shift firefighters of the City of Charleston from a summary judgment order entered by the Circuit Court of Kanawha County on December 4, 1987. This case involves the propriety of the City of Charleston's calculation of the appellants' pay since 1983. The appellants indicate that there are no genuine issues of material fact in this matter, and thus they do not challenge the entry of summary judgment, but they claim that the court's conclusion and judgment are contrary to the law. After reviewing the record, we conclude that the appellants' assertions are without merit. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County.
This case grows out of the legislative enactment of W.Va.Code, 21-5C-1, et seq., the West Virginia wage and hour law, which went into effect on January 1, 1967. The statutory sections require employers to compensate employees at a rate of at least 1.5 times their regular rate of pay for any hours worked over the statutory maximum "straight time" hours per week. 1
The appellants, who are shift firefighters paid on an hourly basis, filed the first complaint instituting these actions on January 29, 1985, challenging the City of Charleston's payroll practices. They claimed that the City had violated W.Va.Code, 21-5C-3, in that it had failed to pay them not less than one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked beyond forty hours per week. 2
The facts, as developed, show that following the enactment of the 1967 wage and hour law, the City of Charleston established a new approach to paying its firefighters. Under the City's approach, a maximum compensable salary estimate for each class of firefighters was set out in the municipal budget. In conjunction with the budget, the City Council adopted an hourly rate of pay for each class of firefighter. The maximum estimate was substantially equal to the firefighters' hourly rate multiplied by forty, the number of regular hours each firefighter was scheduled to work each week, added to 1.5 times the hourly rate multiplied by sixteen, the number of overtime hours each firefighter was scheduled to work each week. 3
It is undisputed that the hourly rate and the overtime rate of pay for each class of firefighters were established before the beginning of each fiscal year. The firefighters were not necessarily paid the maximum amount established in the budget estimate, but instead an amount computed by multiplying the hours worked by the hourly and overtime rates of pay.
In the present proceeding, the firefighters argue that the technique used by the City of Charleston constitutes a "boosted hours method" of payment which is legally unacceptable and that it results in a depressed hourly rate of pay. They indicate that this method of pay was adopted by the City of Charleston solely for shift firefighters after the West Virginia Wage and Hour Act took effect, in response to the overtime payment requirement of the Act and with the intent of circumventing the overtime provision of the Act while presenting the facade of compliance with it. They argue that it is improper under the ruling of this Court in Local 313, I.A. of F. v. City of Morgantown, 174 W.Va. 122, 323 S.E.2d 604 (1984).
In the Morgantown case, this Court ruled that a compensation scheme adopted by the City of Morgantown violated W.Va.Code, 21-5C-1, et seq. Under the scheme, firefighters were paid a fixed salary, and there was no agreement or formula that set an hourly amount for regular pay or overtime pay. The City of Morgantown took the position that hourly rates could be inferred by working backward and dividing the fixed salary and by the number of hours worked. This Court disagreed and concluded in syllabus point 3 that:
Where a fixed salary is paid and there is no express agreement or formula shown that sets an amount for a regular rate of pay and an overtime rate of at least one and one-half times the regular rate, such an agreement or formula may not be inferred from hypothetical or retroactive calculations.
In the later case of Pullano v. City of Bluefield, 176 W.Va. 198, 342 S.E.2d 164 (1986), the Court again addressed the question of whether a scheme for the payment of firefighters complied with statutory provisions relating to overtime. In that case the City of Bluefield adopted designated annual salaries for its firefighters as well as hourly rates of pay for them. When the listed hourly rates were multiplied by forty, representing the number of regular hours worked each week, and the product was added to one and one-half times the hourly rate multiplied by sixteen, representing the number of overtime hours worked each week, the total of the two figures annualized equaled the designated salary. Unlike the City of Morgantown, the City of Bluefield had a pre-established, publicized, hourly rate of pay, not one which had to be hypothetically calculated at the end of a work year. This Court found that the City of Bluefield's plan was adequate because it incorporated a schedule of hourly rates and because the firefighters were notified in advance of their hourly rates of pay and the hours which they would work. The Court stated:
We conclude the provisions of our wage and hour law, W.Va.Code, 21-5C-3(a), will be satisfied where:
(1) firefighters know in advance their regular hourly rate of pay, their average number of weekly hours to be worked each week, including a definite number of overtime hours over the forty-hour regular...
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Boggess v. City of Charleston
...thoroughly evaluated within the underlying employer-employee relationships. The admonition of this Court in Ingram v. City of Charleston, 180 W.Va. 313, 376 S.E.2d 327 (1988), is worth repeating in the present case:In the Pullano case, the Court indicated that W.Va.Code, 21–5C–3(d)(3), offe......