Rоnald J. SCHILLING, Jr.; Russell E. Dolan; Jonathan A. Hecker, Individually and On Behalf of Other Similarly Situated Employees, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. SCHMIDT BAKING COMPANY, INC., Defendant-Appellee.
No. 16-2213
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
Argued: September 13, 2017; Decided: November 17, 2017
876 F.3d 596
III.
“The public interest . . . includes the substantial public concern for the safety of police officers lawfully carrying out the law enforcement effort.” United States v. Sakyi, 160 F.3d 164, 167 (4th Cir. 1998). Today, this court tаkes yet another step in minimizing that concern and continues its “significant departure from the precedent of this Court and the Supreme Court.” Henry, 652 F.3d at 553 (Shedd, Circuit Judge, dissenting). Collectively, our jurisprudence continues to raise the specter of a chilling effect on police conduct, “prompting law enforcement officers to choose inaction in order to avoid risking personal liability.” Id. Before today, when confronted by an armed person who had just committed a violent crime and was advancing towards them, an officer was entitled to believe that they were under imminent threat. Now, however, under the majority‘s rule, unless and until the officer has either issued a warning or waited for the armed individual to aim his weapon, further compounding the risk of officer harm, the officers must pause bеfore taking action or face
Cooper, but that case was decided after the events here and cannot provide the clearly established law the Court requires.
Before AGEE, KEENAN, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Keenan wrote the opinion, in which Judge Agee and Judge Harris joined.
BARBARA MILANO KEENAN, Circuit Judge:
In this appeal, we consider whether the district court erred in dismissing a complaint filed by three individuals against their former employer, Schmidt Baking Company, Inc., under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the FLSA),
I.
The plaintiffs, Ronald Schilling, Russell Dolan, and Jonathan Hecker (collectively, the plaintiffs), worked as district sales managers for the defendant, Schmidt Baking Company, Inc. (Schmidt), for a period of time after 2008. The plaintiffs were nonexempt salaried employees and frequently worked more than 40 hours in a given week. For all hours worked, the plaintiffs were paid at the regular wage rate, and were not paid overtime wages for hours worked in excеss of 40 hours per week.
During the plaintiffs’ employment, Schmidt provided baked goods to restaurants, grocery stores, and other small businesses across several states in the Mid-Atlantic region. Schmidt entered into contracts with independent operators who executed some of these deliveries. Those contract operators owned or leased “box trucks,” which weighed over 10,000 pounds, to move the goods throughout the delivery network. Schmidt also maintained a limited number of company vehicles at each of its depots. This fleet included trucks of a variety of sizes, some weighing less and some weighing more than 10,000 pounds.
When the various operators were unable to complete their deliveries, the plaintiffs often were required to perform those deliveries. Because of the quantity of deliveries and the limited number of drivers, the plaintiffs spent between 65% and 85% of their time each week making deliveries.
The plaintiffs filed the present federal action under the FLSA, the Maryland Wage and Hour Law (the MWHL), and the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law (the MWPCL). The plaintiffs allege that they were entitled to payment of overtime wages for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. Schmidt moved to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), or in the altеrnative, for summary judgment under
II.
We review de novo the district court‘s dismissal of the complaint under
A.
We begin with an overview of the statutory scheme at issue in this case. In the midst of the Great Depression, Congress enacted the FLSA to combat the “evils and dangers resulting from wages too low to buy the bare necessities of life and from long hours of work injurious to health.” S. Rep. No. 75-884, at 4 (1937). Congress intended that the FLSA “protect ‘the rights of those who toil.‘” Benshoff v. City of Va. Beach, 180 F.3d 136, 140 (4th Cir. 1999) (quoting Tenn. Coal, Iron & R.R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U.S. 590, 597, 64 S.Ct. 698, 88 L.Ed. 949 (1944), superseded in part by statute,
The FLSA, however, exempts certain classes of employees from its overtime protections. See
In 2005, Congress passed an amendment to the MCA called the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).1 The SAFETEA-LU amended the
In June 2008, however, Congress enacted the SAFETEA-LU Technical Corrections Act of 2008 (TCA).2 As relevant here, Section 305 of the TCA reinstated the pre-SAFETEA-LU definition of “motor carrier.” This сorrection restored the Secretary of Transportation‘s authority to regulate motor carriers, regardless of the weight of the vehicle driven. See
Despite this broadening of the DOT‘s regulatory authority, the TCA also amended the FLSA to narrow the class of employees covered by the MCA Exemption. Section 306(a) of the TCA provides that “[S]ection 7 of the Fair Labor Standards Act [imposing overtime compensation requirements] . . . shall apply to a covered employee notwithstanding section 13(b)(1) of that Act [the MCA Exemption].” Tech. Corrections Act, § 306(a). Thus, even if an employer is subject to the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Transportation, that employer still may be obligated to pay its employees overtime wages if the employees meet the TCA‘s definition of a “covered employee.” In relevant part, the TCA defines a “covered employee” as “an individual“:
(1) who is employed by a motor carrier or motor private carrier . . . ;
(2) whose work, in whole or in part, is defined—
(A) as that of a driver, driver‘s helper, loader, or mechanic; and
(B) as affecting the safety of operation of motor vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less in transportation on public highways in interstatе or foreign commerce . . . ; and
(3) who performs duties on motor vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less.
B.
The central issue on appeal is whether the plaintiffs are “covered employees” under the TCA, entitling them to overtime compensation under the FLSA. Schmidt argues that because the plaintiffs worked on a mixed fleet, or a fleet consisting of vehicles weighing both more than and less than 10,000 pounds, the plaintiffs were subject to the MCA Exemption and, therefore, were not entitled to overtime compensation. In Schmidt‘s view, if an employee spends more than a de minimis amount of time operating large vehicles, the TCA exception does not apply.
In response, the plaintiffs contend that they qualified for the TCA exception to the MCA Exemption. The plaintiffs argue that because a “covered employee” is an employee who drives small vehicles “in whole or in part,” and because the plaintiffs spent 70% to 90% of the time they spent making deliveries driving small vehicles, the plaintiffs plainly satisfied the statutory definition. Therefore, the plaintiffs claim, they were entitled to overtime wages for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. We agree with the plaintiffs’ arguments.
We agree with the Third Circuit‘s reasoning. The issue whether the plaintiffs before us were “covered employees” within the meaning of the TCA presents a question of statutory interpretation. When interpreting a statute, we first consider the plain meaning of the statutory language. United States v. Abdelshafi, 592 F.3d 602, 607 (4th Cir. 2010). In examining a statute‘s plain meaning, we consider all the words employed and do not review isolated phrases. United States v. Mitchell, 518 F.3d 230, 233-34 (4th Cir. 2008). Our analysis of particular statutory language also is informed by “‘the specific context in which that language is used, and the broader context of the statute as a whole.‘” Yi v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 412 F.3d 526, 530 (4th Cir. 2005) (quoting Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 341, 117 S.Ct. 843, 136 L.Ed.2d 808 (1997)).
The text of the TCA plainly provides that employees working on mixed fleet vehicles are cоvered by the TCA exception. Section 306 of the TCA expressly amended the FLSA by providing that overtime compensation would be available to “covered employee[s]” even when the MCA Exemption ordinarily would exempt those employees from the FLSA‘s overtime requirements. By stating in section 306(a) of the TCA that the TCA “shall” apply to covered employees, Congress mandated that еven if the MCA Exemption applied to certain drivers, those drivers nevertheless would be entitled to overtime compensation.3
The structure of the TCA exception also makes clear that an employee need only work on smaller vehicles “in part” to qualify for overtime compensation, thereby placing drivers of mixed fleets within the FLSA‘s requirements. Sections 306(c)(1), (2), and (3) of the TCA cоllectively list requirements that an employee must meet in order to be excepted from the MCA Exemption and entitled to overtime wages. The language of Section 306(c)(2), which modifies the two subsections that follow, refers to individuals “whose work, in whole
Subsection 306(c)(2)(A) describes the nature of the covered employee‘s job, as an employee “whose work, in whole or in part, is defined [] as that of a driver, driver‘s helper, loader, or mechanic[.]” Thus, by using the phrase “in part,” the statute does not require that an employee perform one of the listed jobs during all working hours. Instead, an employee satisfies subsection 306(c)(2)(A) if she works as a driver, driver‘s helper, loader, or mechanic for a portion of her working hours.
Similarly, subsection 306(c)(2)(B) describes the effect of an emрloyee‘s work, meaning that a covered employee is one “whose work, in whole or in part, is defined [as] affecting the safety of operation of motor vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less in transportation on public highways in interstate or foreign commerce. . . .” A covered employee‘s work must therefore, entirely or partially, affect the operational safety of vehicles weighing less thаn 10,000 pounds.
There is nothing in the language or structure of the statute indicating that Congress intended to limit the reach of the TCA to exclude employees working on mixed fleets of vehicles. For example, if Congress had intended for employees working on mixed fleets to be exempt from overtime compensation requirements, Congress could have made the current content of subsection 306(с)(2)(B) its own separate section, with the effect that the term “in whole or in part” would not modify the phrase “motor vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less.” But Congress did not do so. Likewise, if Congress had intended to exclude mixed fleet employees from the FLSA‘s overtime compensation requirements, it could have made that intent explicit in Section 306(c)(3), by defining a “covered employee” as an employee “who exclusively performs duties on motor vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less.” But, again, Congress did not do so.
We also observe that the purpose of the FLSA is “remedial” in nature. Tenn. Coal, 321 U.S. at 597; Purdham v. Fairfax Cty. Sch. Bd., 637 F.3d 421, 427 (4th Cir. 2011). Consistent with that purpose, we construe the FLSA liberally, “recognizing that broad coverage is essential” to accomplish the statute‘s goals. Tony & Susan Alamo Found. v. Sec‘y of Labor, 471 U.S. 290, 296, 105 S.Ct. 1953, 85 L.Ed.2d 278 (1985); see Purdham, 637 F.3d at 427 (“[T]he Supreme Court has cautioned that the FLSA ‘must not be interpreted or applied in a narrow, grudging manner.‘” (quoting Tenn. Coal, 321 U.S. at 597)). Exemptions to the FLSA “are to be narrowly construed against the employers seeking to assert them and their application limited to those establishments plainly and unmistakably within their terms and spirit.”4 Arnold v. Ben Kanowsky, Inc., 361 U.S. 388, 392, 80 S.Ct. 453, 4 L.Ed.2d 393 (1960).
We therefore hold that the plaintiffs were entitled to FLSA overtime wages for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. The plaintiffs easily satisfied the requirements of Section 306(c)(2). The plaintiffs spent the majority of their work-
III.
The plaintiffs also appeal the district court‘s dismissal of their claims for overtime wages under Maryland law. The FLSA and the Maryland statutory schemes are largely congruent, and ordinarily claims brought pursuant to the MWHL succeed or fail together with claims brought under the FLSA. See Hall v. DIRECTV, LLC, 846 F.3d 757, 775 n.10 (4th Cir. 2017). The present case, however, presents аn exception to this general principle.
The MWHL, tracking the MCA Exemption in the FLSA, also contains an exemption that excludes from overtime protection employees for whom the DOT sets qualifications and maximum hours of service. See
At oral argument, the plaintiffs conceded that were it not for the TCA‘s exception to the MCA Exemption, the plaintiffs would be excluded from the FLSA‘s overtime compensation requirements. And we will not read into Maryland‘s statutory scheme an exception similar to the TCA exception when one does not exist. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court properly dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims for overtime wages brought under Marylаnd law.7
IV.
For these reasons, we vacate the district court‘s order dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims for overtime wages under the FLSA, affirm the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ state-law claims, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED