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Employers Are Not Required to Accept A Proposed Beginning & Ending of the Workweek From Its Employees - Overtime Wages Impacted


Johnson v. Heckmann Water Resources - Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals


Facts:  Kevin Johnson and Brad Smith brought suit against their former employers, Heckman Water Resources, Inc. (HWR) and Complete Vacuum and Rental, L.L.P. (CVR) and sought unpaid overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA").  During their employment, the employees were classified as non-exempt employees (and as a result, eligible for overtime) under the FLSA and were paid an hourly wage.

The employees worked twelve hour shifts for seven consecutive days.  HWR and CVR used a Monday through Sunday workweek to calculate overtime under the FLSA.  Based upon the way the workweek was calculated, Johnson was compensated for four hours of overtime every pay period and Smith was compensated for eight hours of overtime.

In their suit, Johnson and Smith alleged that their workweek should have begun on Thursday and ended on Wednesday, thereby entitling them to forty-four hours of overtime compensation per paycheck.  The district court granted summary judgment in favor of HWR and CVR and held no FLSA violation occurred by way of the calculation of the hours worked per pay period in regard to eligible overtime hours. 

Holding:  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court and held that the employer has a right to establish the workweek and therefore is not required to accept an employees' proposed workweek.  The Court noted that while the FLSA does not define "workweek" nor require the workweek to begin on any given day, Johnson and Smith failed to point the court to any authority that showed employers were actually required to accept an employees' proposed workweek when calculating overtime wages.  As a result, in reliance upon the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals which dealt with a similar case in 2012, the Fifth Circuit Court held no FLSA violation occurred when the employees were not compensated for the requested forty-four hours of overtime per pay period.

Judgment:  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's granting of summary judgment in favor of HWR and CVR and held that no FLSA violation occurred when the employers used a Monday through Sunday workweek to calculate overtime wages.

The Takeaway:  I think the key here is that the employer is afforded great latitude to set the workweek schedule, independent of what an employee might want.  In this case, there was quite a bit of overtime wages that the employers would have been on the hook for (the forty-four hours per pay period argued by the employees vs. the four and eight hours of overtime actually paid to Johnson and Smith), had the proposed workweek been accepted by the court.  The real downfall here was likely the fact that the FLSA did not spell out when a work week had to start, and another circuit court of appeals had ruled on a similar issue in favor of employers previously.  With nothing tangible for the employees to rely upon and point the court towards, it again came back to the court feeling comfortable with giving employers the freedom to set the workweek as they see fit.

Majority Opinion Judge:  Judge Prado

Date:  July 14, 2014

Opinion:  http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Kevin_Johnson_et_al_v_Heckmann_Water_Resrc_CVR_Inc_et_al_Docket_N


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