Mueller v. Reich

• Decision Date: 12 July 1995
• Docket Number: Nos. 94-3262,94-3263,s. 94-3262
• Citation: 54 F.3d 438
• Parties: , 130 Lab.Cas. P 33,236, 2 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1217 Gerald R. MUELLER, James A. Andreshak, and Frederick Moeller, on behalf of themselves and all other employees of the State of Wisconsin similarly situated, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert B. REICH, Secretary of Labor, and United States Department of Labor, Defendants-Appellants, and Charles H. THOMPSON, Secretary, Wisconsin Department of Transportation; Wisconsin Department of Transportation; et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 438

54 F.3d 438

63 USLW 2788, 130 Lab.Cas. P 33,236,

2 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1217

Gerald R. MUELLER, James A. Andreshak, and Frederick Moeller, on behalf of themselves and all other employees of the State of Wisconsin similarly situated, et al Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert B. REICH, Secretary of Labor, and United States Department of Labor, Defendants-Appellants and Charles H. THOMPSON, Secretary, Wisconsin Department of Transportation; Wisconsin Department of Transportation; et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 94-3262, 94-3263.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 5, 1995.

Decided May 15, 1995.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied July 12, 1995.

Michael E. Banks (argued), Kelly & Haus, Madison, WI, for Gerald R. Mueller, James A. Andreshak, Frederick Moeller, David Tamblyn, David Dahlk, Melvin Sensenbrenner, Richard Nelson, Roger Bohn, David Buschkopf, Curtis Paulson, Thomas M. Stemrich, Terry D. Cook, Gerard Swim, Robert Grosch, Vernon Carlson, State Engineering Ass'n.

Jennifer Sloan Lattis, Asst. Atty. Gen., Wisconsin Dept. of Justice, Richard Briles Moriarty (argued), Wisconsin Dept. of Justice, Madison, WI, for James Klauser, Carroll D. Besadny, Gerald Whitburn, Carol N. Skornicka, Jon E. Litscher, Dept. of Health and Social Services, Dept. of Employment Relations, Dept. of Transp., Dept. of Admin., Dept. of Industry, Labor and Human Relations, Dept. of Health & Human Services, Charles H. Thompson, George Meyer, Public Service Com'n, George K. Steil, Sr., Bd. of Regents of University of Wisconsin System, State of Wis. Paul Frieden (argued), Dept. of Labor, Office of Sol., Washington, DC, for Robert B. Reich, Dept. of Labor.

Christine O. Gregoire, Office of Atty. Gen. of Wash., Olympia, WA, for State of Wash., amicus curiae.

Bruce F. Ehlke, Aaron N. Halstead, Shneidman, Myers, Dowling & Blumenfield, Madison, WI, for American Federation of State, County and Mun. Employees, AFL-CIO, District Council 40.

Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and CUMMINGS and MANION, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Chief Judge.

This is a class action on behalf of certain engineers employed by the State of Wisconsin, seeking overtime pay to which the plaintiffs claim to be entitled by the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. Secs. 201 et seq. The Act exempts bona fide executive, administrative, and professional employees, Sec. 213(a)(1); and the state claims, and the district court agreed, that the engineers fall within the exemption. Mueller v. Thompson, 858 F.Supp. 885 (W.D.Wis.1994). The class is defined as all state-employed engineers who have been classified as exempt.

The Act does not define the term "executive, administrative, and professional employees," but instead tells the Department of Labor to define it "from time to time by regulations." Sec. 213(a)(1). The Department has done this in a pair of regulations one of which--the only one we need consider--is known as the "salary basis" regulation. 29 C.F.R. Sec. 541.118. This regulation defines executive, administrative, and professional employees as employees who receive a salary as distinct from an hourly wage--provided (so far as bears on this case) that their pay may not be docked for an absence from work of less than one day and that they are not subject to having less than a week's pay docked for a disciplinary infraction that is not the breach of a major safety regulation. The engineers who make up the plaintiff class are subject to both types of sanction. This may seem to make their case a slam dunk. But in 1992 the Department of Labor created an exception, limited to public employees, to the first proviso and in consequence a public employer may now, without forfeiting its exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act, dock an employee's pay for missing less than a day's work. 29 C.F.R. Sec. 541.5d. The Department considered whether likewise to make an exception for public employees to the limitation on disciplinary sanctions, but it decided not to. The engineers challenge the new regulation, claiming that the Department is not authorized to treat public employees differently from private ones, but they defend the Department's decision not to go further and differentiate between public and private employers with regard to disciplinary measures. The state, though otherwise pleased with the new regulation, attacks that decision. The district judge rejected the engineers' challenge to the Department but accepted the state's. So the state won the case.

The Department of Labor has managed to inject huge confusion into our appellate review of the district court's decision. The engineers, because they wanted to knock out the new regulation, which had been promulgated by the Department of Labor, named the Department as an additional defendant along with the state. They did not have to do this. The relief they seek is the payment of overtime compensation by the state. They ask for nothing from the Department of Labor or any other federal entity. The regulation on which the state relies is an obstacle--that is true. But they could challenge its validity without naming the Department as a defendant. It is utterly commonplace for the validity of regulations and even statutes to be challenged in private litigation (which from the standpoint of the federal government a suit by private individuals against a state is). See, e.g. Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1447, 131 L.Ed.2d 328 (1995). That is why, for example, a district court is required to certify a challenge to the constitutionality of a state or federal statute to the state or federal attorney general, respectively, and allow him an opportunity to intervene and defend the statute. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2403; Max M. v. New Trier High School District No. 203, 859 F.2d 1297, 1300 (7th Cir.1988). We know of no similar provision requiring a party who is challenging the validity of a federal regulation in private litigation to name the agency that promulgated or enforces the regulation as a defendant.

At all events, the district judge held the regulation valid and also dismissed the suit, so that the engineers obtained no relief of any sort against the Department. Yet the Department filed a cross-appeal. As the Supreme Court has held, California v. Rooney, 483 U.S. 307, 107 S.Ct. 2852, 97 L.Ed.2d 258 (1987) (per curiam), and we tirelessly remind the bar, e.g., Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co. v. Reinke, 43 F.3d 1152, 1154 (7th Cir.1995); Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Corp. v. County of DuPage, 991 F.2d 1280, 1282-83 (7th Cir.1993); Abbs v. Sullivan, 963 F.2d 918, 924-25 (7th Cir.1992), and would have expected the agencies of the federal government, at least, to have learned by now, a party is not permitted to appeal or cross-appeal unless it wants the judgment of the lower court modified in some way.

The Department's reason for wanting to cross-appeal is that it is distressed by the district court's ruling that the new regulation, though valid as far as it goes, should have gone even further and exempted public employees from the disciplinary limitation in the salary-based regulation as well as from the prohibition against pay deductions for missing part of a day's work. That ruling is important to the engineers' suit against the state; it doomed the suit. But it did not affect the judgment in the suit against the Department, a judgment of dismissal. A defendant cannot appeal the dismissal of the suit against him on the ground that, in dismissing the suit, the district court said something that may hurt the defendant in a future case. E.g., California v. Rooney, supra, 483 U.S. at 311, 107 S.Ct. at 2854; Warner/Elektra/Atlantic Corp. v. County of DuPage, supra, 991 F.2d at 1282-83. That is precisely the ground of the Department's appeal here, as its lawyer acknowledged at the argument. We add that the hurt would be small here because district court decisions are not authoritative as precedents, even at the district court level. Colby v. J.C. Penney Co., 811 F.2d 1119, 1124 (7th Cir.1987).

So the cross-appeal was improper, and must be dismissed. What makes it confusing rather than merely superfluous is that the Department, though it manages to avoid saying so, wants the plaintiffs to win their suit against the state. That is, the would-be cross-appellant wants the appellants to win rather than, as is almost always true, to lose. To come within the exemption for executive, administrative, and professional employees, the state must, in the Department's view--and we do not understand any other party to these proceedings to disagree--comply with all parts of the salary-basis regulation (to the extent the regulation is valid, of course), thus including the part limiting discipline; and the state did not comply with that part. But a party cannot appeal from a judgment in its favor merely because it would like the unsuccessful plaintiff to prevail against someone else. Moy v. Cowen, 958 F.2d 168 (7th Cir.1992) (per curiam).

The cross-appeal is all the more weird because the Department of Labor is empowered to sue to enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act on behalf of employees aggrieved by violations of the Act and specifically to recover, as their agent, unpaid minimum wages or overtime compensation. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 216(c); see, e.g., Tony & Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor, 471 U.S. 290, 293-94, 105 S.Ct. 1953, 1957-58, 85 L.Ed.2d 278 (1985). Indeed, the Act clearly envisions the Department as the primary enforcer. 29 U.S.C. Sec. 217; Walton v. United Consumers Club, Inc., 786 F.2d 303, 306-07 (7th Cir.1986); EEOC v. G-K-G, Inc., 39 F.3d 740, 745 (7th Cir.1994) (dictum). Since the Department wanted these employees to win, it could have sued on their behalf, and it should have been...