Lacurtis v. Express Med. Transporters, Inc.
| Decision Date | 31 May 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 4:15-cv-00427-AGF,4:15-cv-00427-AGF |
| Citation | 189 F.Supp.3d 903 |
| Parties | Michael Lacurtis, Plaintiff, v. Express Medical Transporters, Inc., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Brendan J. Donelon, Donelon, P.C., Kansas City, MO, Daniel W. Craig, Donelon, P.C., St. Louis, MO, for Plaintiff.
John J. Gazzoli, Jr., Jessica C. Gittemeier, Rosenblum and Goldenhersh, P.C., St. Louis, MO, for Defendants.
This putative class and collective action is before the Court on the parties' cross motions for summary judgment.1 (Doc. Nos. 34 & 38.) Plaintiff claims that Defendants violated the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201, et seq., and the Missouri Minimum Wage Law, Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 290.500, et seq., by failing to pay him and similarly situated "paralift" van drivers overtime.
The parties' dispute arises over whether Plaintiff is a "covered" employee under § 306 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act, Technical Corrections Act ("TCA"), and thus eligible for overtime. See Pub. L. No. 110–244, Title III, § 306, 122 Stat. 1572, 1620 (2008). The parties agree that if Plaintiff is a not a "covered" employee, Plaintiff would be ineligible for overtime under the Motor Carrier Act Exemption ("MCAE") to the FLSA. See 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(1). Whether Plaintiff is "covered employee" under the TCA turns on whether the vans he operated were "designed or used" to transport more than eight passengers when the vans were modified to accommodate wheelchair placements.
The Court heard oral argument on these motions on January 22, 2016. The parties subsequently submitted supplemental authority in support of their positions. For the reasons set forth below, the Court finds, as a matter of law, that Plaintiff is a "covered employee" under the TCA and therefore eligible for overtime, and that Defendants' defenses to liability are without merit. Accordingly, Defendants' motion will be denied, and Plaintiff's motion will be granted.
For the purposes of the motion before the Court, the record establishes the following. Defendant Express Medical Transporters, Inc. ("EMT") is a for-profit transportation services company that provides non-emergency medical and student transportation in several states through contracts with various governmental agencies and school districts. EMT's gross annual sales exceeded $500,000 per year at all relevant times. EMT is engaged in interstate commerce in several states company-wide and operates across state lines in two of its locations in Missouri and Arkansas (the "St. Louis" and "Ozarks" markets). Defendant Hospital Shuttle Service, Inc. ("HSS") is a related entity that employs the drivers for EMT.
EMT provides two types of transportation services: "ambulatory," for people who can walk, and "non-ambulatory," for people lying down or in a wheelchair. EMT owns a fleet of vehicles and uses different vehicles depending on whether it is transporting ambulatory or non-ambulatory customers. The vehicles used to transport non-ambulatory customers are called "paralift" vans, and are owned by EMT. The paralift vans are modified Ford Econoline E-250 and E-350 vans, which were originally manufactured as 12-and 15-passenger vehicles, respectively, and which each have a gross vehicle weight of less than 10,000 pounds. The vans were modified and converted into paralift vans by a separate, unrelated company, to accommodate two wheelchair positions, plus seating for the driver and one or more passengers.
EMT is licensed as a motor carrier by the United States Department of Transportation ("DOT") and is obligated to comply with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations of the DOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The DOT conducts periodic compliance reviews of EMT's operations, the most of recent of which occurred in July 2011. The review required inspection of "all passenger carrying vehicles designed to carry 9 or more passengers (including the driver)," and in connection with this requirement, the DOT inspected eight of EMT's paralift vans and found them to be satisfactory as to safety under the applicable regulations.
The drivers of EMT's paralift vans exclusively operate paralift vans, and provide customers with nonemergency transportation. EMT and HSS have employed Plaintiff as a full-time driver since January 10, 2012, and Plaintiff has always operated paralift vans exclusively.
Attached as Exhibit E to Plaintiff's motion are photographs that accurately depict the type of paralift van that Plaintiff has operated during his employment with Defendants. The photographs in Exhibit E depict a paralift van that has been modified by removing seats to accommodate two wheelchair placements. In addition to the two wheelchair placements, there is one fixed driver's seat, one fixed passenger seat, and one fold-down seat. The stickers affixed on the door jamb of the paralift van depicted in Exhibit E state that the van has a gross vehicle weight rating of 8600 pounds and a total seating capacity of five.
Attached as Exhibit F to Plaintiff's motion are photographs of the only other type of paralift van that Plaintiff has operated during his employment. These photographs also depict a paralift van that has been modified by removing seats to accommodate two wheelchair placements. In addition to the two wheelchair placements, this paralift van has one fixed driver's seat and four additional fixed seats. The stickers affixed on the doorjamb of the paralift van depicted in Exhibit F state that the van has a gross vehicle weight rating of 9500 pounds and a total seating capacity of six.2
Plaintiff has spent the vast and substantial majority of his time on a weekly basis operating paralift vans configured similarly to those depicted in Exhibits E and F. However, the parties dispute whether and to what extent other drivers employed by Defendants since 2012 have driven paralift vans with additional fold-down seats.
Defendants pay overtime to all drivers except paralift van drivers in the St. Louis and Ozarks markets, including Plaintiff, who transport passengers across state lines in interstate commerce. Defendants classify paralift van drivers in the St. Louis and Ozarks markets as exempt from the FLSA's overtime pay requirements pursuant to the MCAE. During his entire employment, Plaintiff has typically worked an average of 50 hours a workweek, he has always been paid hourly, and he has never been paid overtime for hours worked in excess of 40 hours a week.
At all relevant times during his employment with Defendants, Plaintiff has served as a member of a pool of employee drivers who transport passengers across state lines in interstate commerce. Plaintiff signed a "Driver Agreement" at the time of his employment, in which he acknowledged that he is a "member of a pool of employees who engages in interstate pickups and deliveries on a regular basis" and that in the "regular course of [his] employment, it is reasonable for [him] to expect to make interstate runs." (Doc. No. 36-1 at 12.)
On September 2, 2010, an investigator employed by the United States Department of Labor's ("DOL") Wage and Hour Division completed an FLSA compliance investigation of Defendants in response to a St. Louis paralift van driver's complaint that EMT was not paying overtime to paralift van drivers in the St. Louis market, in violation of the FLSA. The investigation covered the time period of July 2008 to July 2010. The investigator issued and signed a written "Compliance Action Report," concluding that the MCAE applied to the paralift drivers and mechanics that were the subject of the investigation. The investigator found that the paralift vans he inspected "are currently designed to transport more than 8 passengers for compensation," as required for the exemption, because:
The modification to these vehicles was to add seats that could rise up and stay flat against the outside wall of the vans. This allowed for more wheel-chair patients to be put in the vehicle. However, the seats could also lie down and allow for seating of up to 10 persons in the van.
(Doc. No. 36-1 at 16.) The Compliance Action Report was not signed by the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division.
The parties dispute whether the investigator inspected the same type of paralift vans operated by some of Defendants' employees during the time frame relevant to this case, 2012 to the present. As an exhibit to their reply brief, Defendants submit the affidavit of paralift driver, Frederick Crook, who states that he has been employed by Defendants since 2009, and that the investigator inspected his paralift van during the 2010 investigation. In his affidavit, Crook states that the "paralift vans used by Defendants in 2009 and 2010, at the time of the Wage & Hour Division's FLSA compliance investigation, were modified and configured in the same way as the paralift vans used in 2012" and that "[i]n fact, many of the same paralift vans were in Defendants' fleet in 2009-2010 and subsequently during the period of 2012-2015." (Doc. No. 44-1.) At oral argument, Defendants asserted that this affidavit establishes that some of the paralift vans operated by drivers in the St. Louis market from 2012 to the present have the same number of fold-down seats as the paralift vans inspected by the investigator in 2010. However, Defendants admit that "the vast and substantial majority of Plaintiff's time on a weekly basis has been spent operating paralift vans that are configured similarly to those depicted in Exhibits E and F," which do not have enough fold-down seats to allow for seating of more than eight persons.3
Defendants argue that they are exempt from liability to Plaintiff for overtime pay under the MCAE. In support of this argument, Defendants rely on the DOL investigator's written findings in the 2010 Compliance Action...
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...v. Warrior Energy Servs. Corp., No. 6:13-CV-54, 2015 WL 1221255, at *3 (S.D. Tex. Mar. 17, 2015) ; Lacurtis v. Express Med. Transporters, Inc., 189 F.Supp.3d 903, 912 (E.D. Mo. 2016). The Court agrees with the statement in Aikens that the burden issue is not terribly consequential as both p......