Melton v. Tippecanoe Cnty.

Decision Date22 September 2016
Docket NumberNo. 14–3599,14–3599
Parties James Melton, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Tippecanoe County, Defendant–Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Ronald E. Weldy, Attorney, Barker Hancock Cohron, Noblesville, IN, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Douglas J. Masson, Attorney, Hoffman, Luhman & Masson, Lafayette, IN, for DefendantAppellee.

Before Manion and Kanne, Circuit Judges, and Pepper, District Judge.*

Kanne

, Circuit Judge.

After he disregarded an order from his supervisor that he could not change his schedule to make up for missed time, Plaintiff James Melton was discharged from his job at the Tippecanoe County Surveyor's Office. Melton later filed suit against the County, alleging that during his time there, he had arrived early and worked through lunch every day and was not compensated for overtime in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The district court granted summary judgment to the County because Melton had not designated sufficient evidence to find that he worked more than forty hours in a workweek. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND
A. Factual Background

Melton worked in the Tippecanoe County Surveyor's Office from July 6, 2009, through his termination on September 1, 2010. Regular work hours in the Surveyor's Office were from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with a one-hour floating lunch break. On May 13, 2010, Melton asked his supervisor in an email if he could take a class during work hours and “make up the 4 hours a week by only taking 1/2hour [sic] lunches and coming in 1/2hour [sic] early on T,R,F.” His supervisor responded by email that Melton could take the class, but due to concerns about supervision and being able to keep track of time, he could not make up the missed time. Instead, he would have to treat the time as unpaid or as vacation time. Melton acknowledged his supervisor's answer, responding [t]hat is fine with me.”

When his class began the week of August 23, 2010, Melton worked through lunch on one day and came in early three days that week. Melton was paid for the additional time worked, but he was also terminated for failing to follow his supervisor's order that he could not work extra time.

B. Procedural Background

Each week while he was employed at the Surveyor's Office, Melton would certify a timecard reporting the hours he worked. According to County records, Melton was paid for all of the hours that he certified he worked. Not so, according to Melton. Melton filed suit in state court alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)

, and the Indiana Wage Claim law, Ind. Code § 22–2–9–2(a). The County subsequently removed the case to federal court.

In his complaint, Melton alleged that his timecards did not accurately reflect the hours he worked because when he put his actual time worked on his timecard, the office secretary would reduce his hours to 37.5, telling him that he could not be paid for more than 37.5 hours in a workweek. Specifically, Melton claimed that he was not compensated for (1) time worked before 8 a.m. even though his supervisor told him to come to work early every day and (2) time worked through all or part of his floating lunch each day.

In support of his claim that he was not properly compensated, and in response to discovery requests, Melton produced a spreadsheet created from memory that purports to show the dates and times he worked during the whole of his employment with Tippecanoe County.

The County moved for summary judgment on several grounds. In particular, it argued that Melton “was paid for the time he certified ... , his recollection of uncertified time is demonstrably unreliable, and ... he did not take those steps available to him to put Tippecanoe County on notice of any allegedly inadequate compensation.” (Def.'s Mot. Summ. J. 22.)

In response, Melton refused to address the County's argument that his “memory is unreliable,” calling it a “premature argument” that “concerns credibility to be decided at trial.” (Pl.'s Opp. to Def.'s Mot. Summ. J. 7 n.2.) Instead, Melton addressed the County's argument that it did not have knowledge of Melton's additional work hours by designating the following testimony from his deposition as evidence that he worked hours for which he was not compensated: (1) that he submitted time sheets with more than 37.5 hours to the secretary; (2) that she would return a “corrected version” with 37.5 hours; (3) that she told him he would not be paid for hours worked beyond 37.5; (4) that Melton was told by his supervisor on three occasions that he was required to be at work before 8:00 a.m.; and (5) that he spoke with his supervisor three times about working hours that were not being paid. Melton did not point to any evidence regarding unpaid lunch hours nor did he rely on his spreadsheet as evidence of his unpaid hours.

In reply, the County noted that Melton had only designated evidence related to “about twenty unpaid minutes per day before work” and no evidence of working through lunch. Therefore, the County argued, Melton only had evidence upon which a reasonable juror could find, at the most, an additional one hour and forty minutes of time worked in a week. Because that additional time would only account for a workweek of 39.2 hours, the County argued that Melton could not establish a FLSA violation, which requires the plaintiff to show uncompensated hours in excess of forty per week.

The district court agreed, and it granted summary judgment to the County. The district court found that Melton had only designated an additional one hour and forty minutes of uncompensated time. That time, the district court found, was insufficient to establish a FLSA violation because Melton had not shown that he worked in excess of forty hours per week. The district court then declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Melton's state-law claim and dismissed it without prejudice. Melton appealed.

II. ANALYSIS

We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. Peretz v. Sims , 662 F.3d 478, 480 (7th Cir. 2011)

. Because our review is de novo , we may affirm on any ground supported in the record, so long as that ground was adequately addressed in the district court and the nonmoving party had an opportunity to contest the issue.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Summary judgment is appropriate where “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)

. In reviewing whether the movant is entitled to a grant of summary judgment, we take all facts and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Peretz , 662 F.3d at 480 ; see also

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). When opposing a properly supported motion for summary judgment, the non-moving party must “cit[e] to particular parts of materials in the record” or “show[ ] that the materials cited do not establish the absence ... of a genuine dispute.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c).

FLSA provides that “no employer shall employ any of his employees ... for a workweek longer than forty hours unless” it pays the employees overtime pay. 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)

. But, an employee who brings suit pursuant to FLSA “has the burden of proving that he performed work for which he was not properly compensated.” Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. , 328 U.S. 680, 686–87, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946), superseded on other grounds by Portal–to–Portal Act of 1947, 29 U.S.C. §§ 251 –62.

Where the employee alleges that his employer kept inaccurate records, he “has carried out his burden if he proves that he has in fact performed work for which he was improperly compensated and if he produces sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference.” Id. at 687, 66 S.Ct. 1187

. At that point, [t]he burden then shifts to the employer to come forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to negative the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee's evidence.” Id. at 687–88, 66 S.Ct. 1187.

Here, Melton has called into question the accuracy of the County's records by alleging that the secretary told him he could not be paid for more than 37.5 hours per week. Melton testified that she would always “correct” his timecards to 37.5 hours if he claimed more.1 By calling into question the accuracy of the County's records, Melton had to “produce[ ] sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of that work as a matter of just and reasonable inference.” Id. at 687, 66 S.Ct. 1187

.

A. Evidence of Working through Lunch

We note first that in his complaint, Melton alleged that he “would work through all or part of his lunch break.” (Amended Compl. ¶ 20.) He did not, however, in his response to the County's motion for summary judgment, designate any evidence to support his claim, nor did Melton rely on his own spreadsheet as evidence of his unpaid lunch hours or respond to the County's argument that his spreadsheet was demonstrably unreliable.2

Instead of rehabilitating the spreadsheet as competent evidence of his work hours or even addressing its reliability, Melton's response was that the County's argument was “premature” and an issue of “credibility to be decided at trial.” Melton is wrong. That is because

[d]ocuments or objective evidence may contradict the witness' story; or the story itself may be so internally inconsistent or implausible on its face that a reasonable factfinder would not credit it.” ... [That] principle is equally applicable to summary judgment, and we may state it thus: testimony can and should be rejected without a trial if, in the circumstances, no reasonable person would believe it.

Seshadri v. Kasraian , 130 F.3d 798, 802 (7th Cir. 1997)

(quoting Anderson v. City of Bessemer City , 470 U.S. 564, 575, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) ).

In other words, a...

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