Greg HOLAWAY, Plaintiff-Appellant v. STRATASYS, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
No. 14-1146.
United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
Submitted: Oct. 8, 2014. Filed: Nov. 6, 2014.
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Jarvis C. Jones, argued, Bloomington, MN (Eric D. Satre, on the brief), for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Gregory L. Peters, argued, Minneapolis, MN (Corie J. Tarara, on the brief), for Defendant-Appellee.
Before RILEY, Chief Judge, WOLLMAN and BYE, Circuit Judges.
BYE, Circuit Judge.
Greg Holaway brought this Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA“) case against his former employer Stratasys, Inc. (“Stratasys“). The district court1 found Holaway
I
Holaway was employed as a Field Service Engineer (“FSE“) for Stratasys from 2006 until 2012. At the time of Holaway‘s employment, Stratasys categorized FSEs as exempt from the provisions of the FLSA requiring certain employees be paid overtime wages for working more than forty hours a week.
On February 8, 2012, Holaway sent an email to other FSEs complaining Stratasys was expecting the FSEs to work “45/50/55/60” hour weeks without overtime. Appellant App. 3. Thereafter, Stratasys terminated Holaway for violating Stratasys‘s online protocol.
On April 24, 2012, Holaway commenced this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleging Stratasys was in violation of the FLSA. In an August 2012 deposition, Holaway testified there was variance in his day-to-day and week-to-week schedule. Appellant App. 134. Specifically, regarding work done before 8 a.m. on a weekly basis, Holaway testified he typically worked two to three hours doing preparation work, id. at 137, and he typically spent three to four hours traveling to locations, id. at 138. Regarding work performed after 5 p.m. on a weekly basis, Holaway testified he typically spent four to five hours driving to a client‘s site or hotel, id. at 141, three to four hours at a client‘s site, id., three to four hours writing expense reports, id. at 143, and one to two hours arranging travel time, id. at 145. Holaway also testified he typically worked two to three hours each weekend on administrative work. Id. Finally, Holaway testified he typically worked sixty-two to seventy hours a week. Id. In a March 2013 deposition, Holaway testified, basing his estimate on “what [he] did on a day-to-day basis on a weekly basis and fill[ing] in the hours,” he worked an average of sixty to seventy hours a week for the duration of his employment. Id. at 10. In a July 2013 deposition, Holaway testified, based on “mainly just recollections of [his] daily activities,” he typically worked sixty hours per week. Id. at 153.
Holaway seeks damages based on his approximation he worked 60 hours per week every week of his employment. Following discovery, Stratasys moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted after finding Holaway failed to put forth evidence sufficient to show Holaway worked more than forty hours a week. Holaway now appeals.
II
“We review a district court‘s decision to grant a motion for summary judgment de novo, applying the same standards for summary judgment as the district court.” Tusing v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 639 F.3d 507, 514 (8th Cir.2011). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
The parties contest whether Holaway was properly classified as an exempt employee. We need not determine whether Holaway was improperly classified as exempt because, even assuming Holaway‘s employment was subject to the overtime requirements of the FLSA, Holaway has failed to put forth evidence sufficient to demonstrate he ever worked for more than forty hours per week.
For non-exempt employees, the FLSA prohibits the employment of any person “for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed.”
Because Stratasys classified Holaway as exempt from the overtime requirements of the FLSA, Stratasys did not keep precise records regarding the hours worked by Holaway. Because his employer did not keep records, Holaway need not put forth “the precise extent of uncompensated work.” Carmody, 713 F.3d at 406. However, Holaway has failed to meet even the relaxed evidentiary standard because he failed to put forward any evidence of the amount and extent of his work in excess of forty hours a week for any week worked for Stratasys, let alone evidence of excess hours worked every week of his employment. Holaway has, instead, put forth contradictory and bare assertions of his overtime hours worked. At various times, Holaway has estimated his work hours as between forty-five and seventy hours a week, yet has failed to specifically account
Even taking the evidence in the light most favorable to Holaway, the evidence is inconsistent and provides no details which would allow a jury to determine Holaway worked beyond forty hours in any specific week of his employment. Therefore, Holaway has failed to come forward with “sufficient evidence to show the amount and extent of [overtime] work” which would allow a fact-finder to find overtime hours “as a matter of just and reasonable inference.” Anderson, 328 U.S. at 687-88, 66 S.Ct. 1187 (emphasis added).
III
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.