Purdham v. Fairfax County Sch. Bd.

• Citation: 637 F.3d 421
• Decision Date: 10 March 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–1048.,10–1048.
• Parties: James PURDHAM, For himself and all similarly situated employees of Defendant, Plaintiff–Appellant,andMichael Bouchard, For himself and all similarly situated employees of Defendant; Floyd Williams, For himself and all similarly situated employees of Defendant, Plaintiffs,v.FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant–Appellee,andFairfax County Public Schools, Defendant.National School Boards Association; North Carolina School Boards Association; South Carolina School Boards Association; Virginia School Boards Association, Amici Supporting Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

637 F.3d 421

161 Lab.Cas. P 35,881

266 Ed. Law Rep. 603

17 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 597

James PURDHAM, For himself and all similarly situated employees of Defendant, Plaintiff–Appellant,andMichael Bouchard, For himself and all similarly situated employees of Defendant; Floyd Williams, For himself and all similarly situated employees of Defendant, Plaintiffs,

v.FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, Defendant–Appellee,andFairfax County Public Schools, Defendant.National School Boards Association; North Carolina School Boards Association; South Carolina School Boards Association; Virginia School Boards Association, Amici Supporting Appellee.

No. 10–1048.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: Dec. 9, 2010.Decided: March 10, 2011.

ARGUED: Nils George Peterson, Jr., Arlington, Virginia, for Appellant. Thomas Patrick Murphy, Hunton & Williams, LLP, McLean, Virginia, for Appellee. ON

BRIEF:

Jeffrey B. Hardie, Hunton & Williams, LLP, McLean, Virginia, for Appellee. Francisco M. Negron, Jr., General Counsel, Lisa E. Soronen, Nancy Dinsmore, National School Boards Association, Alexandria, Virginia, for Amici Supporting Appellee.Before SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR, Associate Justice (Retired), Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation, and KING and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.Affirmed by published opinion. Judge DAVIS wrote the opinion, in which Justice O'CONNOR and Judge KING joined.

OPINION

DAVIS, Circuit Judge:

Appellant James Purdham is employed as a safety and security assistant by the Fairfax County, Virginia, School Board. Purdham filed this action asserting that the School Board failed to pay him overtime wages for his services as the coach of a high school golf team, and thereby violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA” or “Act”), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. After the close of discovery, the district court granted the School Board's motion for summary judgment. Whether Purdham is owed overtime wages hinges on whether, as a golf coach, he is to be deemed an “employee” or a “volunteer” within the meaning of the FLSA. We hold, for the reasons set forth within, that the School Board properly deemed Purdham a volunteer. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I.

A.

For approximately twenty years, Purdham has worked as a safety and security assistant for the Fairfax County Public Schools. Purdham's security duties include monitoring the school building, assisting in investigations, and monitoring the arrival and departure of school buses. In addition to his regular full-time position, Purdham has served for the past fifteen years as Hayfield Secondary School's golf coach. Purdham's position as a security assistant is not conditioned on his coaching activities, and he is free to relinquish his coaching duties at any time without an adverse impact on his full-time security position.

As part of his coaching services, Purdham maintains a varsity golf squad of twelve to sixteen students in addition to a “B Squad” of several students. Purdham maintains the latter group in order to avoid excluding students who are interested in the sport but who do not make the varsity squad. The golf season begins the first week of August and runs through November. After tryouts, the regular competitive season includes eight to ten golf competitions in addition to daily practices. At the end of the regular season, the team participates in several tournaments. For all golf activities, Purdham transports players to and from the golf course, and he occasionally drives them to their homes.

In addition to his coaching duties during the regular season, Purdham also: schedules the upcoming season; responds to telephone calls, e-mails, and text messages from parents and players; arranges the golf team finances; holds an annual interest meeting for prospective players; arranges for the team to complete a community service project; and oversees the team's fundraising activities. Purdham estimates that he spends 400 to 450 hours annually on golf coaching activities.¹ The School Board permits Purdham to work on coaching activities during his regular work day. In addition, when the golf team has a tournament or activity that occurs during Purdham's normal working hours, the School Board permits him and other coaches to use paid administrative leave while he is away from his regular duties.

Purdham receives reimbursement for his expenses, including a mileage allowance, for his coaching activities. Purdham also receives a stipend from the School Board in consideration for his services as a coach. The School Board's stipend policy mirrors that of other school systems in close proximity to Fairfax County. When Purdham first began coaching, more than a decade before filing suit, his stipend was between $500 and $800. More recently, Purdham's stipend had increased to $2,114 for the 2008–09 school year (and slightly less than that for the 2007–08 school year). The stipends for all coaches of a particular sport are the same, regardless of how many hours each coach devotes to coaching activities and regardless of a team's performance. The majority of the Fairfax County coaches are (like Purdham) regular employees of the School Board. The most common regular position among golf coaches was as a health and physical education teacher. The record shows that the full-time salaries among this group ranged from $30,191 to $90,076.

If a coach decides to relinquish his or her position and a replacement is needed, the replacement coach will receive the same stipend that the predecessor received. That is, the School Board does not negotiate with prospective coaches regarding the stipend. Under School Board policy, if a coach is terminated during the season and disputes the termination, the coach is entitled to file a grievance.

B.

Purdham's claims rest significantly on the fact that for a brief period, the School Board in fact paid its coaches overtime, but then it ceased paying overtime. In full context, however, as we explain below, the School Board's brief deviation from its longstanding practice of not paying overtime provides scant support for Purdham's claims.

From the time Purdham began coaching in the early 1990s until 2004, the School Board did not pay overtime wages to Purdham and other coaches. In 2004, however, the School Board learned of FLSA-related litigation against other school districts; accordingly, it conducted a wage-hour audit of similarly-situated schools in order to determine whether coaches were being managed correctly. As a result of its study, the School Board decided, out of “an abundance of caution,” to pay non-exempt employees overtime wages based on a calculation of the hours they had devoted to coaching activities. Thus, Purdham and his peers received retroactive payments representing unpaid overtime for hours devoted to coaching activities for the 2003–2005 golf seasons. Also, as a result of the audit, the School Board issued contracts to coaches for the 2005–2006 school year, providing that the coaches were to be paid $14 per hour and that they were entitled to time and a half in overtime wages.

Importantly, when the School Board determined to pay the coaches retroactive overtime and undertook to implement contractual arrangements with coaches, it also made a policy decision that, effective July 1, 2006, it would no longer permit non-exempt employees such as Purdham to coach or participate in supplemental or extra-curricular activities. This decision was based primarily if not solely on the potential complications associated with documenting coaches' hours. However, before the School Board implemented its new policy, the Department of Labor issued a guidance opinion letter about school coaching and FLSA compliance. Based on this new guidance from the Department of Labor, the School Board concluded that its full-time non-exempt employees were properly deemed “volunteers” in connection with their coaching activities and thus not eligible for overtime compensation. As a result, the School Board abandoned its policy of prohibiting non-exempt employees from coaching. This change in policy was communicated in a letter to all principals on June 13, 2006. In June 2007, the School Board informed Purdham of the Department of Labor guidance letter and that the School Board would not pay overtime wages to full-time employees who “volunteer” to coach.

C.

Purdham filed this action pursuant to the FLSA against the School Board in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia as a proposed collective action on behalf of himself and all other School Board employees who are both (1) regular employees not exempt from the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the FLSA, and (2) also serving separately as coaches of school athletics or as directors of other extracurricular activities.² After the district court denied Purdham's motion for conditional certification of the case as a collective action, see Purdham v. Fairfax County Pub. Sch., 629 F.Supp.2d 544 (E.D.Va.2009), and after the close of discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the issue of whether Purdham should be deemed an “employee” within the meaning of the FLSA in connection with his services as a golf coach.

After hearing oral argument, the district court granted the School Board's motion for summary judgment, denied Purdham's cross-motion, and held that Purdham was not to be deemed an “employee” with respect to his services as the coach of the golf team but instead, was to be deemed a “volunteer.” The court reasoned that Purdham was a volunteer because Purdham was not doing the same type of work as required by his regular position as a security assistant and because the stipend he received was a “nominal fee” authorized by law to be paid to volunteers. Purdham noted a timely appeal, and we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II.

We review the grant of summary judgment de novo. See ...