Here’s a challenging legal situation you could encounter. Employee argues that he worked 17 hours on labor day weekend, 4 hours on Mother’s Day, 2 hours on Father’s Day, 23 hours on a certain Friday and Saturday completing a mandatory inventory. Employee testified that he was required to perform the early morning server maintenance and respond to a trouble call during his vacation time. In sum, Employee claimed that he was entitled to overtime pay for approximately 210 hours of work for a total award of $6,486. If all of this time could be substantiated at true, is Employee entitled to his overtime money?
It’s obvious that the plaintiff here is an IT worker. Employer first tries to argue that the Employee’s position is not subject to overtime pay requirements set forth in the Fair Labor Standards Act. However, Employer lost that battle with the Court finding that this particular job is not exempt from overtime pay. That discussion is for another day. Where the Court focuses on here is whether the employee actually worked more than 40 hours in any given week. Employer presented testimony from its Senior Administrative Manager, and she testified that she never required Employee to work over forty hours in a workweek. Employee never testified or presented evidence regarding the total cumulative number of hours that was worked in any week. Employee did testify that he worked more than eight hour days on some days, and he proved that he worked on certain holidays and weekends. However, he failed to demonstrate that he also worked a regular work schedule of five eight-hour workdays in addition to those instances. Because employee could not prove he worked more than 40 hours in a given week, he was NOT entitled to his overtime pay.
In summary, to recover for overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Plaintiffs must allege that management employed the worker for a work week longer than forty hours. The extra hours in a given day or holidays or weekends does not necessarily make a difference.
Cite: Taylor v The Del-Nat Tire Corporation, Tenn. Crt. of App. No W2010-01426-COA-R3-CV, 6/13/2011