Julie ALEXANDER, Carmel G. Abbate, Bozeman Anderson, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF CHICAGO, a municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellee.
Nos. 92-1441, 92-1442 and 92-1448.
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.
Argued Nov. 9, 1992. Decided May 12, 1993.
Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied Aug. 17, 1993.
994 F.2d 333
Jennifer Naber, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Kathryn Zeledon Nelson, Kelly R. Welsh, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Benna R. Solomon, Joan Flynn, Asst. Corp. Counsel (argued), Office of Corp. Counsel, Appeals Div., Chicago, IL, for defendant-appellee.
Before BAUER, Chief Judge, CUDAHY, Circuit Judge, and CRABB, District Judge.*
CUDAHY, Circuit Judge.
A group of Chicago police officers alleged that the extent of the restrictions applied to their half-hour meal breaks required that they be compensated for such breaks under the Fair Labor Standards Act,
I.
Under section 7(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employers must pay overtime to employees who work more than forty hours weekly.
Twenty current and former Chicago police officers initiated this action in state court in November 1989 alleging that the rules and restrictions applied to their half-hour meal periods necessitated that those periods be counted as compensable hours within the tour of duty pursuant to the FLSA. Leahy v. City of Chicago, 785 F.Supp. 724 (N.D.Ill. 1992).
Specifically, the plaintiffs’ complaint puts forth an extensive list of requirements to which the officers must adhere during their meal breaks: officers must receive permission—frequently denied—to take a meal period, and cannot take that period during the last hour of a shift assignment; they must remain within their district; they must remain in full uniform while adhering to myriad regulations regarding conduct while in uniform; officers are not permitted to take meals at locations other than establishments
The action was removed to federal court and about 5,600 other police officers joined the original plaintiffs in the first case, Leahy v. City of Chicago, 785 F.Supp. 724 (N.D.Ill. 1992). Others who missed the cutoff date for joining the action filed separate complaints in Alexander v. City of Chicago and Accosta v. City of Chicago. The complaints allege the same restrictions; amended complaints in the Alexander and Accosta actions also allege that requests by the public for assistance and information and interruptions by supervisors and inspectors occur regularly and frequently.
The City moved in the Leahy case for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to
II.
We review de novo the district court‘s order granting the motion for judgment on the pleadings. There remains some confusion, however, regarding the nature of the district court‘s inquiry—that is, whether the case is governed by the standard for motions to dismiss or should instead be treated as a motion for summary judgment. In United States v. Wood, 925 F.2d 1580 (7th Cir.1991), this court held, seemingly without qualification, that a 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings is subject to the same standard as a rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Id. at 1581. In that event, the district court, viewing all facts in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, may grant the motion only if “it is beyond doubt that the non-movant can plead no facts that would support his claim for relief.” Id. (citing Thomason v. Nachtrieb, 888 F.2d 1202, 1204 (7th Cir. 1989)); Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 101-102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). The district court may not look beyond the pleadings, and all uncontested allegations to which the parties had an opportunity to respond are taken as true. Wood, 925 F.2d at 1581.
The defendant counters that judgment on the pleadings is, in the context of this case, more like summary judgment than like a motion to dismiss. Notwithstanding Wood,2 there may be some validity to this argument. In National Fidelity Life Insurance Co. v. Karaganis, 811 F.2d 357 (7th Cir.1987), this court required a party moving for judgment on the pleadings to establish that there were no material issues of fact to be resolved and that it was entitled to judgment as a matter
A defendant may use a rule 12(c) motion after the close of the pleadings to raise various rule 12(b) defenses regarding procedural defects, in which case courts apply the same standard applicable to the corresponding 12(b) motion. Thomason v. Nachtrieb, 888 F.2d 1202, 1204 (7th Cir.1989); 5A Wright & Miller, § 1367 at 516 (noting that rule 12(c) can serve as an “auxiliary device” for asserting such defenses). Here, however, the City seems to use rule 12(c) in its customary application to attempt to dispose of the case on the basis of the underlying substantive merits. Defendant‘s Br. at 16, 20; see also 5A Wright & Miller, § 1367 at 509, 515 (stating that rule 12(c) is “primarily addressed to” this function). We therefore believe the appropriate standard is that applicable to summary judgment, except that the court may consider only the contents of the pleadings. Karaganis, 811 F.2d at 358. Thus, we take all well-pleaded allegations in the plaintiffs’ pleadings to be true, and we view the facts and inferences to be drawn from those allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. Republic Steel Corp. v. Pennsylvania Eng‘g Corp., 785 F.2d 174, 177 n. 2 (7th Cir.1986). We will not affirm the granting of the City‘s 12(c) motion unless no genuine issues of material fact remain to be resolved and unless the City is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Karaganis, 811 F.2d at 358.
III.
Although the FLSA does not define “work,” its federal regulations set out the circumstances in which meal periods can be excluded from hours worked.
(a) Bona fide meal periods. Bona fide meal periods are not work time. Bona fide meal periods do not include coffee breaks or time for snacks. These are rest periods. The employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals.... The employee is not relieved if he is required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while eating. For example, an office employee who is required to eat at his desk or a factory worker who is required to be at his machine is working while eating.
provided that the employee is completely relieved from duty during the meal period, and all the other tests in § 785.19 of this title are met. On the other hand, where law enforcement personnel are required to remain on call in barracks or similar quarters, or are engaged in extended surveillance activities (e.g., “stakeouts“), they are not considered to be completely relieved from duty, and any such meal periods would be compensable.
The district court, in ascertaining whether the officers’ mealtimes here are compensable work time under the FLSA, looked only to the more specific regulation,
The district court‘s approach falters in two ways. First, the interplay between the federal regulations is more complex than the district court acknowledges. There is no reason to assume
The examination of compensability should not turn on a crabbed comparison between the mealtime restrictions and the necessarily arbitrary, and certainly not all-encompassing, examples in the regulations. The appropriate standard is instead the one articulated in Lamon—a standard that sensibly integrates developing case law with the regulations’ language and purpose.4 Under
The second and more important problem with the decision below is that it does not acknowledge the basic posture of the cases it relies upon and, in particular, the great extent to which resolution of these cases depends upon the specific circumstances surrounding departmental policies regulating meal periods. No case that we are aware of involving law enforcement personnel treats compensability as a matter for judgment on the pleadings. Nearly all of the cases, involving facts generally comparable to those before us, have let the matter go to trial (either with a jury or to the court).6
The restrictions on the Lamon plaintiffs’ meal periods essentially replicate those alleged in the present case. See id. at 1156. On their half-hour meal breaks, the City of Shawnee‘s police officers were required either to leave a telephone number where they could be reached or to monitor a portable radio. They had to react to emergency calls, answer to personnel shortages, respond to citizen requests, confront crimes committed in their presence and act in a responsible and professional manner. Meal locations were restricted to the city limits, or, with approval, locations close to the city, and the officers were not allowed to conduct personal business errands during their meal breaks. Id. These restrictions cannot fairly be characterized as tighter than or substantively different from those alleged by the plaintiffs here. Thus, if the Lamon restrictions constituted sufficient evidence upon which a properly instructed jury could have returned a verdict for the plaintiffs, id., judgment on the pleadings cannot be warranted on the facts before us.
In addition to Lamon, we also regard as instructive the District of Kansas‘s comprehensive analysis of the mealtime compensability issue in Wahl v. City of Wichita, 725 F.Supp. 1133 (D.Kan.1989).8 The restrictions in the present case, while akin to those in Lamon, appear to be more inhibiting than those in Wahl. In Wahl, the officers were subject to geographical limitations, were required to answer emergency calls and to respond to crimes and citizen inquiries and were restricted both in what they could read and in the personal activities or errands they could perform. Id. at 1136-37. Unlike the plaintiffs in the case before us, however, the officers in the Wahl case were not required to remain in full uniform or hence to comply with all the associated regulations of uniformed conduct, although changing out of uniform was admittedly impractical on a short lunch period. Id. Moreover, more than two officers—but not more than “a few“—could visit the same restaurant at once. The Wahl case also does not indicate that the officers were prohibited from taking meals at locations other than establishments serving food, although they were prohibited from taking meals in a tavern, private club or pool hall.
Wahl is unique among the reported cases on this narrow issue in that it arose prior to trial, on summary judgment. The case, however, follows a special pattern among summary judgment cases in that the parties filed cross motions for summary judgment and generated a complete record of uncontroverted facts by submitting affidavits, depositions and answers to interrogatories. Looking to
[t]he rules of the city, both written and unwritten, and the practical constraints arising from the limited length of the break, combine to ensure the city of a reserve of uniformed officers, immediately available for emergency service. The restrictions on the plaintiffs are designed to maximize the public appearance of the officers’ readiness. The city receives the advantages of improved public relations and the elimination of the need to hire additional officers. But as these benefits accrue to the city, the officers are faced with corresponding limitations on their personal freedom.
Id.; cf. Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 133, 65 S.Ct. 165, 168, 89 L.Ed. 118 (1944) (stating that “[r]eadiness to serve may be hired, quite as much as service itself“).
In the case before us, a judge or a jury as factfinder might ultimately find for the defendant. That, however, differs vastly from ruling for the defendant on the pleadings.9 It is not possible in the case before us or in comparable circumstances in the other reported cases to resolve factual issues and apply the appropriate standard to those facts at this early stage as a matter of law. This is not to say that resolution of the FLSA mealtime compensability issue in the countless factual configurations that might arise will always require a trial. What is required is sufficient development of the facts to enable a capable application of the appropriate predominant benefit standard, including a determination of whether the officers are unable to pass the mealtime comfortably because their time or attention is devoted primarily to official responsibilities.10 See Lamon, 972 F.2d at 1155-56.
Moreover, although the extent to which police officers receive regular compensation whenever they actually are disturbed by official duties is not a fact of record here, we could not infer from the existence of such a policy that officers who are not affirmatively called back to duty are necessarily completely relieved of duty.11 There is a universe of possibilities about when a meal is “interrupted” so as to require compensation. At this point we can only speculate about the frequency
Finally, although only the Alexander and Accosta amended complaints—but not the Leahy complaint—specifically allege, in addition to the basic restrictions, that supervisors’ interruptions and requests by the public for assistance and information occur on a regular and frequent basis, we note that the absence of this exact language in the Leahy complaint does not alter our analysis with respect to those particular plaintiffs. The complaint‘s comprehensive catalog of restrictions makes clear without any supplementary magic words that further development of the particular factual circumstances is needed before a court or jury can judge whether the officers’ mealtimes are spent predominantly for the department‘s benefit and whether officers are unable to comfortably and adequately pass the mealtime because their time or attention is devoted primarily to official responsibilities. See Lamon, 972 F.2d at 1155-57. Federal notice pleading requires no more. See
IV.
This case is appropriately resolved by allowing the trier of fact to judge, after sufficient development of the factual circumstances, whether the officers were completely relieved of duty under the standard articulated in the recent Lamon case. For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE the district court‘s entry of judgment on the pleadings and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
CRABB, District Judge, concurring.
This is an extraordinarily difficult case, made more so by the lack of a factual record. I agree with Judge Cudahy that a more complete development of the facts is necessary to allow an informed decision on the scope of the officers’ duties during their lunch breaks. In this regard, I want to add a few comments on the Rule 12(c) motion, the procedural vehicle used by defendant. As this case illustrates, the motion is often confusing. Because it can be used to raise procedural defects after an answer has been filed, it resembles the motions brought under 12(b), including the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. It can also be used in situations in which the pleadings are complete and without defect and raise only a question of law. See generally, 5A Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure §§ 1367 and 1368 (1990). In this case, it appears that defendant used it in the Leahy case to try to resolve a question of law and that plaintiffs objected to its use, maintaining that factual development of the record was necessary to resolve the case and that their complaint was sufficient to state a claim. (In Accosta and Alexander, defendant filed 12(b)(6) motions, which were granted by the district court, relying on the disposition of Leahy.)
On appeal, plaintiffs argue that the district court should have applied a motion to dismiss standard to defendant‘s 12(c) motion in Leahy, that is, the district court should have considered whether any set of facts might be alleged that would support their claim. Plaintiffs seem to be arguing that the district court should not be bound by the defendant‘s characterization of its motion: whenever the motion is filed in a situation in which there is some question whether the complaint is sufficient on its face to state a claim, the court should apply the motion to dismiss standard.
At the outset of his opinion, Judge Cudahy declines to adopt a motion to dismiss standard when the moving party is seeking judg-
Turning to the merits of the case, I note that much of the difficulty of this case lies in applying the “completely relieved from” standard to patrol work, which consists largely of surveillance conducted in a heightened state of readiness. The frequency of interruptions during meal periods may operate to impose a state of readiness so like that of actual patrol work as to warrant compensation during all meal periods. Such a state of readiness may result from the frequency of dispatcher-initiated calls, or again, departmental regulations may so constrain an officer‘s choice of location and activities during meal periods as to require in effect that the officer perform services commensurate with those of an officer who walks a beat. In either case, officers would not be “completely relieved from duty” within the meaning of the FLSA.
I understand Judge Cudahy to be holding that these cases should be returned to the district court to allow the plaintiffs a chance to show that the number and frequency of the actual interruptions require them to spend their lunch breaks predominantly on their employer‘s business. To the extent that his opinion can be read to hold that the officers have raised a triable issue of fact merely by proffering the actual departmental regulations, I disagree with it. The regulations do not affirmatively require the perfor-
Standing alone, the restrictions alleged in Leahy are insufficient to raise a viable claim that these plaintiffs-appellants were not completely relieved from duty. However, I agree with Judge Cudahy that plaintiffs might be able to allege facts that would sustain their position and entitle them to relief. Applying a motion to dismiss standard to their complaint, I would give them a chance to add such allegations to their complaint and develop a factual record. In Alexander and Accosta, plaintiffs-appellants allege frequent interruptions by citizens and inspectors, although they do not allege that they are required frequently to respond to
BAUER, Chief Judge, dissenting.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA“) requires that police officers be primarily engaged in work-related duties during meal periods to warrant compensation for those meal periods. Armitage v. City of Emporia, Kansas, 982 F.2d 430, 432 (10th Cir.1992). The Chicago police officers (“the Officers“) claim that FLSA requires the City of Chicago (“the City“) to pay them as a matter of course when the Officers do nothing more than eat during their meal periods.1
The majority sets out the facts alleged in the Officers’ complaints. The majority does not mention, however, that the City pays the Officers overtime in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the Officers and the City. The agreement requires the City to pay a police officer if the officer works during a meal period. The Officers make no allegation that the City does not comply with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. The issue in this case, then, is whether FLSA requires the City to pay the Officers during their meal period even if they do nothing other than eat during this time and adhere to the restrictions listed in the Officers’ complaints. I disagree with both the majority‘s analysis of the regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Labor (“the Secretary“) and with the majority‘s interpretation of decisions by other courts in similar cases. I will address each in turn.
The majority properly points out that two regulations guide our decision in this case. Both of these regulations interpret FLSA to mean that meal periods are not compensable when employees—here, the Officers—are “completely relieved from duty.”
Taking the two regulations together, as the majority does, does not change the analysis. Both of these regulations indicate that when employees covered by FLSA, including police officers, are required to be at a particular place—at a desk, machine, barracks, or location involving extended surveillance—the employee is working and must be paid. The implication of the Secretary‘s examples is that when employees are not so rigidly restricted to a particular place, like the Officers here, they are not entitled to compensation under FLSA.
With no explanation and without any support from precedent, the majority announces that the examples in the regulations are “arbitrary, and certainly not all-encompassing.”
I similarly disagree with the majority‘s use of precedent. In Lee, for example, several deputy county sheriffs sued the defendant county for alleged violations of FLSA. On appeal, the deputies challenged the district court‘s finding that their meal breaks were not compensable. Id. at 225. The deputies claimed that FLSA required the county to pay them for their meal periods because the periods were often less than thirty minutes and the deputies could be called back to duty if an emergency arose. Id. The Fifth Circuit looked to the examples contained in
In Lamon v. City of Shawnee, 972 F.2d 1145 (10th Cir.1992), relied on by the majority, the Tenth Circuit reached a similar result in an analogous case. There, police officers sued the City of Shawnee, Kansas for alleged FLSA violations because the city did not pay them for their 30-minute meal periods. Id. at 1147. The court noted that the officers were relieved from duty during meal periods but, like the Officers here, had to respond to emergency calls, citizen requests, and crimes committed in their presence. Id. at 1149. Also like the Officers in this case, the officers in Lamon were required to leave a telephone number where they could be reached or to monitor a portable radio during their meal periods. Id.
In Lamon, the Tenth Circuit had to define the Secretary‘s “completely relieved from duty” standard in order to decide whether FLSA required the city to compensate the officers for their meal periods.2 The court stated that in the context of FLSA section 7(k),
As in Lee, the Lamon court relied on
The Tenth Circuit applied Lamon to a suit brought by police detectives against the City of Emporia, Kansas. Armitage v. City of Emporia, Kansas, 982 F.2d 430 (10th Cir.1992). In Armitage, the police detectives were required to take an unpaid lunch break of at least 30 minutes. Id. at 431. The police detectives had to notify the dispatcher of their location in case they were needed, were not allowed to consume alcohol during lunch, and were required to respond to questions from the public if approached during lunch. Id. Also, like the Officers here, the police detectives in Armitage were paid at the overtime rate if they were called back to duty during lunch. Id. The police detectives sued the city pursuant to FLSA. After a bench trial, the district court awarded back pay for the police detectives’ lunch periods. Id. The Tenth Circuit reversed because Lamon “require[d] a different outcome under these facts.” Id. As articulated in Lamon, the court in Armitage stated that “the proper standard for determining compensability of a meal period is whether the officer is ‘primarily ... engaged in work-related duties during meal periods.‘” Id. at 432 (quoting Lamon, 972 F.2d at 1157). The Armitage court determined that the facts, as found by the district court, indicated that the police detectives were not primarily engaged in work-related duties during their meal periods. 982 F.2d at 432. Accordingly, the court reversed the award of backpay for meal periods. Id. The court did not remand the case for a new trial, as in Lamon, but instead substituted its judgment for the district court‘s and instructed the district court to enter judgment for the city. Id. at 433.
The majority in this case accurately observes that Lee, Lamon, and Armitage all involved trials whereas here, the district court dismissed the Officers’ complaints. The gist of Lee, Lamon, and Armitage, however, demonstrates that dismissal was proper. In all three cases, the courts ruled against the deputy sheriffs, police officers, and police detectives. In Lee, the court affirmed the district court‘s decision that the meal periods were not compensable. In Lamon, the court reversed a district court‘s decision that meal periods were compensable. Finally, Armitage—the most recent pronouncement on the issue—is perhaps the most instructive because the court in that
The trend is clear. FLSA does not require municipalities to pay police officers unless the officers work during their meal period—that is, unless the officers are primarily engaged in work-related duties. The facts alleged in the complaints are no different than the facts found after trial in Lee, Lamon, and Armitage. In fact, this is an even stronger case for the City than for the municipalities in those cases. Here, the City is bound by the collective bargaining agreement which requires that the Officers receive overtime rates when they work during their meal periods. The Officers do not allege that the City has breached the collective bargaining agreement and, absent such an allegation, I assume the City fully complies with its terms. Consequently, the City pays the Officers if they work during their meal periods and does not pay them if they do not work during their meal periods. FLSA requires no more.
There is no need for further factual development of the Officers’ case when the facts alleged—taken together with the collective bargaining agreement—so clearly indicate that the City has not violated FLSA. I do not believe that the district court‘s already full docket should be cluttered with this case when the Officers’ complaints are doomed. Finally, I do not believe that federal courts should micro-manage municipal police departments when, as in this case, a collective bargaining agreement provides for a compensation plan that fully comports with FLSA‘s requirements and the police officers do not allege that the municipality has violated such an agreement. I would affirm the district court‘s dismissal of the Officers’ complaints.