Knight v. Morris

• Decision Date: 16 August 1988
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 87-0033-C.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia
• Parties: J.T. KNIGHT, Barry Pack, Terry Duty and Louis Smith, Plaintiffs, v. William L. MORRIS, Defendant.

693 F. Supp. 439

J.T. KNIGHT, Barry Pack, Terry Duty and Louis Smith, Plaintiffs, v. William L. MORRIS, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 87-0033-C.

United States District Court, W.D. Virginia, Charlottesville Division.

August 16, 1988.

David C. Dickey, Stanardsville, Va., for plaintiffs.

Roger C. Wiley, Charlottesville, Va., for Morris.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

MICHAEL, District Judge.

This action is before the court under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Defendant has now moved for summary judgment on the entirety of the claim brought by plaintiff Pack, and partial summary judgment against the claims of plaintiffs Knight, Duty, and Smith. For the reasons stated below, the motion of the defendant is granted.

I. Background

The plaintiffs are all former Greene County deputy sheriffs and are suing to collect what they allege are unpaid overtime wages. Plaintiff Barry Pack worked as a deputy sheriff from October 1, 1984, until December 7, 1985. Plaintiff Terry Duty began working as a part-time deputy sheriff on September 1, 1984, moved to full-time service on July 1, 1985, and worked as a full-time deputy until June 1, 1987. Plaintiff Louis Smith began working as a deputy sheriff on December 1, 1984, and continued in that capacity until February 28, 1987. Plaintiff J.T. Knight began working as a deputy sheriff for Greene County, although not under Sheriff Morris, on January 1, 1984, and continued as a deputy until August 1, 1986. (Complaint p. 3). The plaintiffs claim that there has been no overtime paid since July 1, 1985, and that they are entitled to be compensated for their overtime hours at a rate of one and one-half times their normal rate of pay.

II. The Reach of the FLSA

The applicability of the Fair Labor Standards Act has been the subject of two recent and far-reaching United States Supreme Court Decisions. In 1976, in National League of Cities v. Usery, the Supreme Court held that the 1974 amendments to the FLSA were impermissible infringements upon traditional state spheres of activity, thus limiting the reach of the FLSA. 426 U.S. 833, 96 S.Ct. 2465, 49 L.Ed.2d 245 (1976). Nine years later, in Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2d 1016 (1985), the court reversed itself and found that state agencies are indeed subject to the mandates of the FLSA.¹ Garcia clearly forces state and municipal agencies to abide by the wage and hour restrictions embodied in the FLSA. The crux of this motion for summary judgment is a dispute about when the FLSA must be applied to state and municipal agencies. That is, when did the regime envisioned by Garcia become effective upon the states? The effective date will determine the time from which overtime pay must be calculated.²

Shortly after the Garcia decision, Congress passed the FLSA amendments of 1985. Act of November 13, 1985, PUB.L. No. 99-150, 1985 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News (99 Stat. 787). Seemingly, one effect of these amendments is to give states and municipalities a year's moratorium or breathing space until Garcia-mandated compliance with FLSA is required. Section 2(c)(1) of the 1985 amendments states that

No State, political subdivision of a State or interstate department agency shall be liable under § 16 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for violation of § 6 (in the case of a territory or possession of the United States), 7, or 11(c) (as it relates to § 7) of such Act occurring before April 15, 1986, with respect to any employee of the State, political subdivision, or agency who would not have been covered by such Act under the Secretary of Labor's special enforcement policy on January 1, 1985, and published in §§ 775.2 and 775.4 of Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

99 Stat. 788-89.

In advancing this motion for summary judgment, defendant argues that the moratorium language in P.L. 99-150 relieves him of responsibility for overtime compensation until April 15, 1986. Plaintiffs are forced to argue that, in effect, this statutory language does not mean what it seems to say.

Retroactivity can be a slippery concept and a doctrine that courts may be loathe to apply unless certain tests are met. Chevron Oil v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971). While the question of retroactivity in this case is raised by the decision of Garcia, it is not the retroactivity of the Garcia decision itself which is at issue. Indeed, the circuit court which dealt with Garcia originally and which reheard the decision on remand, found that the Supreme Court did not intend for the Garcia decision itself to be applied retroactively. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 838 F.2d 1411, 1420 (5th Cir.1988). Reading the Supreme Court's Garcia decision as non-retroactive merely means that no state or county or municipality would be penalized for having previously attempted to follow faithfully the National League of Cities decision.³ Litigants who have attempted to rely on Garcia as establishing a retroactive regime have also failed to meet with success in the Sixth Circuit. Thurman v. City of Union City, Tenn., 628 F.Supp. 146 (W.D.Tenn. 1986). There, the plaintiff attempted to claim overtime eligibility solely on the basis of the retroactive application of Garcia itself without reference to the 1985 amendments. Id. at 148.

The non-retroactivity of Garcia itself is not dispositive, because the issue presented in this case is whether or not the 1985 FLSA amendments are retroactively efficacious. The question of whether the 1985 amendments can be applied retroactively is one upon which the Fourth Circuit has not yet passed. However, district courts in several other circuits have faced the issue and have all found that the retroactivity of the 1985 amendments presents no constitutional problems. The specific factual situations which these district courts faced are not, in all cases, identical with that presented by the instant case. However, these courts analyzed the import of the 1985 amendments in a way which clearly supports the defendant's motion for summary judgment.

The earliest case litigating the 1985 amendments was Kartevold v. Spokane County Fire Protection, 625 F.Supp. 1553 (E.D.Wash.1986) In that case, plaintiffs, fire fighters in Spokane, attempted to litigate an overtime claim before the 1985 amendments became effective on April 15, 1986. A district court in the Eastern District of Washington found that those amendments were indeed retroactive and permissibly so. After examining the legislative history the court concluded "that Congress intended to declare a moratorium and thereby forestall the economic impact of Garcia is manifest." 625 F.Supp. at 1562.

Kartevold's reliance on the legislative history of the 1985 amendments is well-placed. The Senate report on the bill clearly identified an intention to provide some sort of lead-time or period of adjustment for the states and localities so that they could restructure their financial arrangements in accordance with the demands of Garcia. S.Rep. No. 159, 99th Cong., 1st Sess., reprinted in 1985 U.S.Code Cong. & Administrative News, 651, 655-56. Likewise, a Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference, included in the House Conference Report to the bill, concluded "State and local government employers are in no way obligated to comply with the Act's overtime provisions prior to April 15, 1986." H.R.Conf.Rep. No. 357, 99th Cong., 1st Sess., reprinted in Id. at 670. The language of the 1985 amendments plainly indicates that Congress intended to defer the impact of Garcia for one year in order to give the states time to adjust. The legislative history fully supports this facial reading of the 1985 Amendments.

A District Court in the Southern District of Texas rejected the claim of deputy sheriffs seeking overtime compensation because the court could find no constitutional infirmity in the moratorium which the 1985 amendments granted. O'Quinn v. Chambers County, Texas, 636 F.Supp. 1388 (S.D. Tex.1986). That court found that Congress had acted perfectly rationally in deciding to create a moratorium for the imposition of liability on state and municipal governments and, because such a creation was rational, the plaintiffs were not in any way deprived of due process. Id. at 1390. Interestingly enough, the court in O'Quinn concluded that the Supreme Court's Garcia decision itself anticipated, or at least contemplated, the possibility of something like the 1985 amendments. The court stated that

Garcia arguably contemplates action such as Congress took. While holding that Congressional power under the Commerce clause is not limited by federal respect for state activity in areas of `traditional government functions' the Garcia court reasoned that such a limitation is not necessary because states participate in the federal government.

Id. at 1391, n. 3.

A district court in the Second Circuit has also found that the Congressional intent in enacting Public Law 99-150 was to create some retroactive protection for the states. Wong v. The City of New York Human Resources Admin., 641 F.Supp. 588 (S.D. N.Y.1986). This case involved a question of whether working as a house-parent in a group home counted as a "non-traditional activity" for the classification purposes in the FLSA. Id. at 588. However, that court undertook to examine, as it should have done, the retroactivity of the 1985 FLSA amendments and took note of the moratorium period provided by the amendments. Id. at 590.

Finally, the Seventh Circuit has had occasion to examine the 1985 amendments and they have also found them to be permissibly retroactive. In Rhinebarger v. Orr, a district court in Indiana rejected the claims of state police officers seeking overtime compensation. 657 F.Supp. 1113 (S.D.Ind. 1987). That decision was affirmed on appeal in an identically-styled case. 839 F.2d 387 (7th Cir.1988). In Rhinebarger II, the Seventh Circuit held that, ...