Owsley v. San Antonio I.S.D.

• Decision Date: 13 September 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-50743,98-50743
• Citation: 187 F.3d 521
• Parties: (5th Cir. 1999) CHARLES S. OWSLEY; REX L. HARTWIG; JUAN J. LEAL; JERRY R. LUCE; PAUL MARK SNODGRASS; RAYMOND RAMIREZ; CHARLES A. TREVINO; MICHAEL LELAND POST, Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants, v. SAN ANTONIO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 521

187 F.3d 521 (5th Cir. 1999)

CHARLES S. OWSLEY; REX L. HARTWIG; JUAN J. LEAL; JERRY R. LUCE; PAUL MARK SNODGRASS; RAYMOND RAMIREZ; CHARLES A. TREVINO; MICHAEL LELAND POST, Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross-Appellants, v. SAN ANTONIO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.

No. 98-50743

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

September 13, 1999

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas

Before JOLLY and SMITH, Circuit Judges, and VANCE, District Judge,^*

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

The San Antonio Independent School District ("SAISD") appeals a summary judgment in this action brought pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") awarding overtime benefits to a group of athletic trainers. Concluding that the trainers are professionals exempt from the FLSA's overtime benefits requirements we reverse and render summary judgment in favor of SAISD.

I.

The plaintiffs are eight of the nine athletic trainers of SAISD. Trainers work with coaches and high school and middle school athletes to prevent injuries and to rehabilitate athletes from injuries. Their job responsibilities include attending practices and sporting events, maintaining treatment facilities, and working with students undergoing rehabilitation. On average, they work sixty hours a week.

The FLSA, 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., requires employers to pay overtime for hours worked in excess of forty in a given work week, but it exempts employees employed in a bona fide professional, administrative, or executive capacity. 29 U.S.C. 213(a)(1). SAISD claims the trainers are subject to this exemption.

II.

The district court granted the trainers' motion for summary judgment in part, declaring they are not exempted professionals under the FLSA. It refused, however, to award liquidated damages, because SAISD had a good faith and reasonable belief that the trainers were exempt. See 29 U.S.C. 260. The court granted SAISD's summary judgment motion in part, finding that one of the trainers, Rex Hartwig, was employed in an administrative capacity exempt from the provisions of the FLSA under 29 C.F.R. 541.2.

SAISD appeals the summary judgment regarding the exemption. The trainers cross-appeal the holding that their job meets the "learned" prong of the short test, the summary judgment adverse to Hartwig, and the denial of liquidated damages.

III.

A.

We review a summary judgment de novo, employing the same standards as did the district court. See Urbano v. Continental Airlines, Inc., 138 F.3d 204, 205 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 119 S.Ct. 509 (1998). Summary judgment is appropriate when, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-24 (1986); see also FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c). An issue is genuine if the evidence is sufficient for a reasonable jury to return a verdict for the nonmoving party. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510 (1986).

The employer bears the burden of proving exempt status. Paul v. Petroleum Equip. Tools Co., 708 F.2d 168, 169 (5th Cir. 1983). The employer's claim of exemption must be construed narrowly and in favor of the employee. See Brennan v. Green's Propane Gas Serv., Inc., 479 F.2d 1027, 1032 (5th Cir. 1973).¹

B.

Both parties agree that the applicable test for whether the plaintiffs qualify as professionals is the following "short test"² set forth in 29 C.F.R. 541.3:

The term employee employed in a bona fide . . . professional capacity . . . shall mean any employee:

(a) Whose primary duty consists of the performance of:

(1) Work requiring knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study, as distinguished from a general academic education and from an apprenticeship, and from training in the performance of routine mental, manual or physical processes, . . . and

(b) Whose work requires the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in its performance.

In ruling on the motions for summary judgment, the district court held that because of the requirement to take fifteen hours of specific college-level courses, the trainer position required learning customarily acquired through specialized intellectual instruction. With respect to the second prong, whether the work required consistent exercise of discretion and judgment, the court held that the trainers may make decisions only within a well-defined and regulated framework, and the application of their specialized knowledge is limited to enumerated pre-set situations. Therefore, it found that the trainers are not exempt professionals under the FLSA.

1.

Trainers in Texas must obtain a state license. State regulations provide a number of options to meet the requirements to be a trainer, the most lenient of which is the following:³

(1) a bachelor's degree in any field;

(2) 1800 hours of apprenticeship over a three-year period;

(3)completion of 5 3-hour credit college courses in (a) human anatomy; (b) health, disease, nutrition, fitness, wellness, or drug and alcohol education; (c) kinesiology; (d) human physiology or physiology of exercise; and (e) athletic training; and

(4) a C.P.R. test.

25 TEX. ADMIN. CODE 313.5. The district court found that, at a minimum, an SAISD athletic trainer must obtain education beyond a high school level and that the education requires a certain amount of specialization in human anatomy and physiology. These requirements are enough, the court held, to satisfy the "learned" prong.

On cross-appeal, the trainers challenge the finding in two ways. First, they submit an opinion letter from the Wage and Hours Division of the Department of Labor stating that athletic trainers in Kansas do not meet the "learned" prong of the professional exemption. They then ask us to defer to this agency interpretation unless it is manifestly contrary to statute. The opinion letter, the trainers assert, represents an agency interpretation and requires us to hold the plaintiffs "non-exempt" under the "learned" prong.

While the trainers are correct that we should defer to the agency's interpretation of a statute, this only means that we should follow the guidelines set forth in 541.3. It does not mean that the Secretary's views on 541.3 are always controlling. The case the trainers cite⁴ stands only for the uncontroversial proposition that agency interpretations of statutes should be given deference under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). Opinion letters, which are issued without the formal notice and rulemaking procedures of the Administrative Procedure Act, do not receive the same kind of Chevron deference as do administrative regulations.⁵

We therefore consider the 1993 opinion letter as persuasive, but we have no obligation to defer to its interpretation, especially given that it does not even deal with the same facts as those in the case sub judice. The Kansas athletic trainers that were the subject of its opinion did not have a credit-hour requirement similar to the fifteen credit-hours required in Texas. Therefore, while the letter suggests that athletic trainers in general do not meet the learned prong, it does not account for the additional specialized training in the form of the credit-hours Texas requires. For this reason, the letter's analysis is inapposite.

In their second challenge, the trainers baldly conclude that a mere fifteen credit-hours cannot be compared to the advanced type of study required for professions such as law, medicine, and teaching that are specifically contemplated by the professional exemption. See 29 C.F.R. 541.301(e)(1). We agree with the district court, however, that brevity of the trainers' course of specialized study does not preclude its inclusion under the "learned" prong. Unlike the case relied on by the trainers,⁶ in which the claimants were not required to take any specific college courses to qualify for their job, the trainers must take a specified number of specialized courses directly related to their professional duties in sports medicine and athletic training.

The trainers' educational background is akin to the training requirements this court found sufficient to meet the "learned" prong for the airline pilots in Paul. There, we found the requirement that pilots complete a course of instruction to learn the regulations governing pilots, basic aerodynamic and flight principles, and numerous airplane operations was enough to satisfy the "learned" prong. See Paul, 708 F.2d at 172. Even though the pilots did not obtain a college degree, their "extensive knowledge of aerodynamics, airplane regulations, airplane operations, [and] instrument procedures" convinced us that their training was as complex as that of "nurses, accountants, and actuarial computants" who are regarded as employees in learned professions. See id. at 172-73.

Similarly, the trainers are required to obtain an university degree and to undergo specialized training in subjects such as human anatomy, physiology, and sports medicine. We therefore affirm the finding that the plaintiffs meet the "learned" prong of the professional exemption.

2.

To qualify the trainers for the professional exemption, SAISD must also show that the trainers' work "requires the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in its performance." 29 C.F.R. 541.3. Though the district court determined that the trainers satisfied the "learned" prong, it found that they did not ultimately qualify for the exemption, because their work does not require the exercise of discretion. The court based its ruling on two grounds, neither of which is persuasive.

First, the court found that the trainers work under the...