Selby v. Yacht Starship, Inc.

• Decision Date: 20 August 2008
• Docket Number: No. 8:07-cv-1619-T-23MSS.,8:07-cv-1619-T-23MSS.
• Parties: Jeremy SELBY, Plaintiff, v. YACHT STARSHIP, INC., and Troy Manthey, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Florida

624 F.Supp.2d 1367

Jeremy SELBY, Plaintiff, v. YACHT STARSHIP, INC., and Troy Manthey, Defendants.

No. 8:07-cv-1619-T-23MSS.

United States District Court, M.D. Florida, Tampa Division.

August 20, 2008.

Andrew Ross Frisch, Morgan & Morgan, PA, Davie, FL, for Plaintiff.

Dennis Michael McClelland, Erin L. Malone, Phelps Dunbar, LLP, Tampa, FL, for Defendants.

ORDER

STEVEN D. MERRYDAY, District Judge.

Jeremy Selby (the "plaintiff") sues Yacht Starship, Inc., ("Starship"¹) and Starship's president and chief executive officer, Troy Manthey, under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. (the "FLSA"). The plaintiff alleges that the defendants violated 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1) by failing to pay the plaintiff one and one-half times his regular rate of pay for each hour the plaintiff worked in excess of forty per week. Pursuant to Rule 56, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the defendants move for summary judgment (Docs. 30, 43), and the plaintiff responds (Docs. 34, 36) in opposition. Although admitting that the plaintiff worked in excess of forty hours during many workweeks and received no overtime pay,² the defendants contend that the plaintiff was exempt from the FLSA overtime requirements under 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(6) because he was "employed as a seaman." Alternatively, the defendants request partial summary judgment (i.e., a finding under Rule 56(d)(1)) that (1) liquidated damages under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) are unavailable because in classifying the plaintiff as exempt the defendants acted in good faith and based on a reasonable belief that the classification complied with the FLSA and (2) the FLSA's normal two-year limitation (rather than the three-year limitation for "a cause of action arising out of a willful violation," 29 U.S.C. § 255(a)) applies because any violation occurred without either knowing or reckless disregard of the FLSA's requirements. At a minimum, the defendants are entitled to the requested partial summary judgment because the plaintiff stipulates that (as to those issues) the pertinent facts are not in dispute.

BACKGROUND

Starship operates dining and event cruises in and around Tampa Bay.³ When Starship employed the plaintiff, Starship operated two vessels, the 180-foot Yacht Starship and the 90-foot Lady Tampa Bay.⁴ The Starship vessels "made dining cruises for brunch, lunch, and dinner, as well as special event cruises for weddings barmitzvas, and other special celebrations."⁵ Generally, Starship ran one or two cruises daily: a daily dinner cruise lasting about two and one half hours and (approximately every other day) a lunch cruise lasting about two hours.⁶ Typically, the Starship vessels "navigated throughout New Tampa Bay and Old Tampa Bay without voyaging beyond the Sunshine Skyway Bridge into the Gulf of Mexico,"⁷ and the cruises generally departed from and returned to a dock in the Channelside section of Tampa.⁸

Yacht Starship is registered with the United States Coast Guard (the "Coast Guard").⁹ To legally operate and transport passengers on the water, Yacht Starship must maintain a certificate of inspection and a full marine crew.¹⁰ The vessel and marine crew must pass an annual inspection and test by the Coast Guard.¹¹ To comply with applicable Coast Guard requirements, Starship staffs Yacht Starship with a marine crew comprising a captain, a first mate, two or three deck hands, and an engineer.¹² Each marine crew member wears a uniform that identifies his position on the crew through stripes and logos.¹³ Starship classifies each marine crew member as exempt from overtime requirements under the FLSA's seaman exemption,¹⁴ and Starship notifies each marine crew member when hired of the classification.¹⁵

The plaintiff worked for Starship and was classified by the defendants as a full-time marine crew member from June 6, 2003, to March 7, 2006.¹⁶ The plaintiff was hired as a deck hand; was promoted to assistant engineer on June 23, 2003, to engineer on May 24, 2004, and to chief engineer about June 20, 2005; and was discharged on March 7, 2006.¹⁷ During the pertinent period, the plaintiff served as engineer and chief engineer, and as a marine crew member he reported to the captain.¹⁸ The plaintiff generally served aboard the Yacht Starship (the "Starship") but occasionally assisted as a crew member on the Lady Tampa Bay.¹⁹

Accounts of the plaintiff's training for his duties as engineer are obscure or disputed or both.²⁰ However, as engineer and chief engineer, the plaintiff's responsibilities included preventive maintenance²¹ and very minor repairs²² on the vessel's engine and mechanical systems. Specifically, the engineer was required to perform preventive maintenance tasks appearing on engine room checklists and mechanical systems checklists.²³ Manthey and Guardalabene state that the plaintiff generally performed the tasks enumerated on the checklists himself "but he had the ability to ... delegate the duties to other crew members."²⁴ However, the plaintiff insists that he shared these tasks equally or nearly equally with the deck hands.²⁵ Accordingly, the plaintiff states that his promotion to engineer resulted in little change in his actual job duties,²⁶ that he performed no duties in the engine room not also performed by the deck hands, that he possessed no special skill or knowledge about the engine room,²⁷ and that he never helped repair the engine.²⁸

In any event, despite their different job titles, the Starship's marine crew members worked as a team, performed many of the same tasks, and (apart from the general subordination to the captain) observed no rigid distinction among ranks.²⁹ Accordingly, in addition to his engine room and mechanical system responsibilities, the plaintiff performed the types of general maintenance, monitoring, and cleaning duties performed by the deck hands on the marine crew.³⁰ These deck hand duties, detailed on Starship's "Deck Hand Job Description" (Doc. 31-2 at 10-12), included (1) cleaning public areas, windows, doors, walls, closets, fixtures, and hallways; (2) vacuuming public areas and hallways; (3) cleaning public restrooms before, during, and after cruises; (4) cleaning mirrors, stools, sinks, toilets, floors, and door partitions, and restocking sanitary supplies; (5) emptying and replacing garbage bags in garbage receptacles and assisting in removing trash from the vessel; (6) inspecting door locks to ensure they are in working order and alerting management to an unsecured or unsafe situation; (6) assisting in fuel supply and black water removal; (7) taking on potable water; (8) having a working knowledge of bridge equipment, alarms, and responses; (9) assisting in the receipt and delivery of supplies to storage areas; (10) assisting engineering with repair and maintenance of the vessel; (11) sharing responsibility for passenger safety at the gangway; (12) monitoring passengers and reporting unsafe conduct; (13) cleaning the navigation bridge; (14) inspecting safety chains; (15) washing and cleaning the exterior of the yacht, including windows and decks; (16) painting and maintaining the exterior of the yacht; (17) mooring the yacht; (18) establishing a gangway; (19) assisting the captain in the navigation of the vessel (e.g., calling out distances and informing the captain of the relative positions of other vessels); (20) providing assistance to other crew members and departments; (21) fulfilling "station bill"³¹ requirements and participating in safety drills; and (22) "all other duties as assigned, requested or deemed necessary by management."

Although admitting the accuracy of this list,³² the plaintiff describes his deck hand duties as consisting chiefly of "cleaning bathrooms, cleaning the hallway, boarding area chairs, floors, just general cleaning of the yacht"³³ and states, "Generally, that's all we did."³⁴ Even as chief engineer, the plaintiff "considered [himself] a janitor."³⁵ The plaintiff spent about ninety percent of his work time aboard the vessel.³⁶ However, the plaintiff's duties ashore included cleaning the parking lot (which generally took five to ten minutes every morning³⁷), occasionally mowing (with a "weedeater") a small strip of grass outside the dock, and performing odd jobs around the dock or in Starship's offices.³⁸ These odd jobs were generally shared by crew members, and not every crew member performed them every day.³⁹ Additionally, the plaintiff states, "I'd r[u]n to Home Depot at least three times a week for light bulbs, cleaning, this, whatever, anything that ... pertain[ed] to the boat."⁴⁰

Occasionally, the plaintiff would also assist the food and beverage department in a staffing emergency by serving food or washing dishes for the duration of a cruise. The plaintiff estimates that this happened about once a month⁴¹ or twenty times in three years.⁴² Similarly, Jarrod Gay, who was a marine crew member along with the plaintiff in approximately 2005 and 2006⁴³ and for part of that time a Starship engineer,⁴⁴ states that Gay and other members of the marine crew occasionally ("every once in a while") assisted the waiters and servers for half or three quarters of a shift.⁴⁵ Darren McClintock, who was a Starship deck hand from about 2002 to 2004 and thereafter a mate until he became a captain (primarily for Starship's smaller yacht, the Lady Tampa Bay) around 2005,⁴⁶ states that (a) generally a deck hand's responsibilities included "hospitality" duties as well as marine duties; (b) the hospitality or "non-marine" duties consisted in assisting the food and beverage department; and (c) marine crew members spent about half their working time performing the non-marine or "hospitality industry duties."⁴⁷ Jackie Price, who was a Starship crew member between 2004 and 2006,⁴⁸ states that (a) "almost every night" each marine crew member spent two hours or more⁴⁹ assisting the food and beverage staff in serving food, washing dishes, and performing similar galley duty; (b) "w...