Mahoney v. Walbridge Aldinger, LLC

• Docket Number: 2:23-cv-11672
• Decision Date: 15 January 2026
• Citation: Mahoney v. Walbridge Aldinger, LLC, 2:23-cv-11672 (E.D. Mich. Jan 15, 2026)
• Parties: PAULA MAHONEY on behalf of PATRICK GRAY, Plaintiff, v. WALBRIDGE ALDINGER, LLC, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

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PAULA MAHONEY on behalf of PATRICK GRAY, Plaintiff, v. WALBRIDGE ALDINGER, LLC, Defendant.

No. 2:23-cv-11672

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

January 15, 2026

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (ECF NO. 81) AND DENYING AS MOOT PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR COURT-SUPERVISED NOTICE OF COLLECTIVE ACTION (ECF NO. 77)

Honorable Susan K. DeClercq United States District Judge

In this case, former-Plaintiff Patrick Gray brought a collection action lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. § 203 et seq., to recover allegedly unpaid overtime wages from his employer, Defendant Walbridge Aldinger, LLC. Upon Gray's death, his surviving wife and personal representative of his estate, Paula Mahoney, became the named plaintiff. Walbridge now moves for summary judgment, arguing that Gray was correctly classified as exempt from time-and-a-half overtime pay. For the reasons provided below, this Court will grant the motion.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Walbridge's Employment Practices

1. The Safety Engineer Position

Defendant Walbridge Aldinger, LLC (“Walbridge”) is a comprehensive construction-services company that manages the safety and development of customers' projects. ECF No. 81-5 at PageID.2934-35. To provide its services, Walbridge's Health, Safety & Environment Division employs safety engineers to who interface with customers and ensure that the customer's construction projects are completed safely. See id. at PageID.2934, 2937; see also ECF No. 81-2 at PageID.2843. Most commonly, safety engineers perform audits and “safety orientations with new subcontractor employees that come on to the project, administer[] disciplinary action,” provide recognition and awards, coach subcontractors, investigate job-site incidents, and hold meetings. ECF Nos. 8-5 at 2937, 2940, 2942-45; 81-10. Depending on the project, Walbridge sometimes has only one safety engineer at a job site. See ECF Nos. 81-2 at PageID.2838; 82-5 at PageID.2961. Safety engineers with more experience or qualifications can be promoted to senior status, but the duties are essentially the same. See id. at PageID.2844, 2848.

2. Employee Classification

As part of Walbridge's administrative hiring process, Walbridge conducts an internal approval process of a potential employee's “pink sheet,” which is “a single page [that] lists the job candidate's name, the position title, who the manger's going to be, which project they're going to be assigned to; it lists their salary.” ECF No. 81-6 at PageID.3003. The pink sheet also lists whether an employee would be classified as exempt from time-and-a-half overtime pay. Id.

To determine whether a potential employee would be exempt from time-and-a-half overtime pay, Walbridge's Human Resources (HR) Department personnel review the Department of Labor's Guidelines, assess the particular job description, and consider the position's responsibilities to make a collaborative decision. ECF Nos. 81-6 at PageID.3000; 81-3 at PageID.2891-92, 2906-08.

3. Timekeeping and Payroll

When a full-time, salaried employee is hired, the employee is expected to record 40 hours of regular work each week in Walbridge's timesheet system. See ECF Nos. 81-2 at PageID.2859-61; 81-3 at PageID.2894. Walbridge's payroll employees make sure that salaried employees' timesheets reflected consistent pay of at least the minimum of eight hours a day for five regular work days, such that if an employee did not “work or if they worked for a half day for whatever reason. ..payroll would apply that difference to their time to make sure they were brought up to 8 hours.” ECF No. 81-3 at PageID.2894. For construction projects with contracts that permit overtime pay, some salaried employees may record any additional hours over 40 to receive straight time overtime (STOT) pay. Id. at PageID.2895-96, 2900; ECF No. 81-6 at PageID.3015. The STOT hourly payrate is calculated by dividing the employee's annual salary by 2,080-the number of hours in a year at full-time employment. Id. at PageID.2895; see also ECF Nos. 81-2 at PageID.2866; 81-4 at PageID.2922. Pay periods and paydays are biweekly, thereby reflecting 80 hours of regular work for each period. See ECF Nos. 81-4 at PageID.2925, 2928; 81-12 (explaining Walbridge's payroll procedures).

B. Gray's Employment

In March 2008, Walbridge hired former-Plaintiff Patrick Gray to be a safety engineer. See ECF Nos. 81-6 at PageID.3003; 81-2 at PageID.2838. The “compensation” section of Gray's pink sheet showed that he would be full-time with an annual salary of $62,000 and exemption status. ECF No. 81-9 at PageID.3115. In Gray's offer letter, Walbridge offered Gray an annual salary of $62,000 with annual salary reviews. ECF No. 81-8 at PageID.3112. Gray accepted the offer by signing the letter. Id. at PageID.3113.

Gray was later promoted to senior safety engineer.^[1]ECF No. 81-2 at PageID.2828. However, his duties continued to be “implementing and maintaining project Safety & Health policies onsite for the construction manager, all subcontractors and other stakeholders [;]... conduct[ing] safety orientations, meetings, and inspect ions;. inter face[ing] with management from the subcontractors”; answering customer questions; performing audits; developing “and implementing emergency response plans”; and solving complex, on-site safety problems. Id. at PageID.2844-50; see also ECF No. 81-10.

“As a rule,” Gray recorded a daily minimum of eight hours on his timesheets. ECF Nos. 81-2 at PageID.2859-61; 81-3 at PageID.2894. He also recorded overtime hours when permitted-the STOT payrate for which was calculated by dividing his salary by 2,080. ECF Nos. 81-2 at PageID.2866; 81-3 at PageID.2895 (dividing $62,000 by the value of 40 hours in a workweek, times 52 weeks in a year, i.e., 2,080).

Based on this same calculation method, Gray's salary was approximately $85,000 by July 2020, with his STOT payrate at approximately $41.11. See ECF No. 84-6 at PageID.3695. And by July 2021, his salary had increased to approximately $87,500, with his STOT payrate at approximately $42.10. See id. at PageID.3661.

For the weeks that Gray was not on leave in 2021, his pay stubs and timesheets show that he was paid for an average of 46 hours each week for 40 regular hours plus STOT. See ECF No. 81-4. But beginning in the fall of 2021^[2] and continuing through February 2022, Gray was on leave under the Family Medical Leave Act (FLMA). ECF Nos. 81-2 at PageID.2863-64; 87-1. By April 2022, Gray stopped working for Walbridge. See ECF Nos. 81-11 at PageID.3119; 1 at PageID.2; 9 at PageID.38.

C. Procedural History

On July 12, 2023,^[3]Gray filed a collective action against Walbridge, alleging that Walbridge willfully violated the FLSA by misclassifying him as exempt from time-and-a-half for overtime pay and making improper deductions. See ECF No. 1. He also moved for court-supervised notice of the collective action for similarly situated employees, ECF No. 7, which Walbridge opposed, ECF No. 80.

In July 2025, Walbridge moved for summary judgment, arguing that Gray was properly classified as a salaried employee under the FLSA's administrative exemption, did not experience improper wage deductions, and was therefore not entitled to time-and-a-half overtime pay. See ECF No. 81. Plaintiff responded that Gray's duties were not administrative and that under recent precedent, Gray was effectively an hourly employee because his weekly “salary” was not reflective of his normal workweek. See ECF No. 84. Walbridge disagreed. ECF No 87.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

To prevail on summary judgment, a movant must identify record evidence showing that there is no genuine dispute of material fact and that they are entitled to Accordingly, this Court relies on the version of the FLSA that was effective from January 1, 2020 through June 30, 2024. And because, as explained below, this Court will grant the motion for summary judgment, it does not need to address whether there was sufficient evidence to show that the alleged violation was willful. Instead, this Court has considered the broad possible timeframe to view the evidence in a light most favorable to Plaintiff in order to find that there is no dispute of fact that Gray was properly exempt under the FLSA. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251-52. This Court further notes that although Walbridge was required to produce Gray's employment records from 2018 onward in an earlier order, the parties understand that the statute of limitations preclude any damages from before July 12, 2020. ECF No. 81-7 at PageID.3098. See also ECF Nos. 26; 29 at PageID.440. judgment as a matter of law. FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). If the movant makes such a showing, then the burden shifts to the nonmovant to identify specific facts that create “a genuine issue for trial,” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986) (citation omitted), which requires more than a mere “scintilla of evidence,” id. at 252, and more than “metaphysical doubt,” Matsushita Elec. Indus. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586 (1986). All inferences must be reasonable, logical, and drawn in the nonmovant's favor to determine whether any party must prevail as a matter of law. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251-52. Summary judgment will be granted if the nonmovant fails to establish a genuine issue of material fact on the elements of its case that the moving party has challenged. See Celotex Corp., 477 U.S. at 322. But summary judgment will be denied if the challenged elements have “genuine factual issues that . . . may reasonably be resolved in favor of either party.” Hancock v. Dodson, 958 F.2d 1367, 1374 (6th Cir. 1992) (citation omitted).

III. DI...