Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle
District of Florida _ D.C. Docket No. 2:15-cv-00017-PAM-CM,
2:14-cv-00519-PAM-CM
Before
JILL PRYOR, ANDERSON, and HULL, Circuit Judges.
ANDERSON, CIRCUIT JUDGE:
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
former sheriff deputies in Collier and Lee County, Florida,
sued the Collier and Lee County sheriffs pursuant to the Fair
Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. § 201
et seq., and the Florida Minimum Wage Act
("FMWA"), Fla. Stat. § 448.110. The deputies
claim that the sheriffs violated the overtime provisions in
the FLSA and the minimum wage provisions in the FMWA by
failing to compensate them for time spent: (1) donning and
doffing police gear; and (2) driving to and from work in
marked patrol vehicles. The district court granted summary
judgment in favor of the sheriffs. This is the deputies'
appeal. As discussed below, the deputies are not entitled to
compensation under the FLSA or the FMWA for the time that
they spent donning and doffing police gear or the time that
they spent driving to and from work in marked patrol
vehicles. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district
court.[1]
I.
STANDARD
"We
review a district court's order granting summary judgment
de novo." Zaben v. Air Prods. & Chems.,
Inc., 129 F.3d 1453, 1455 (11th Cir. 1997) (per curiam).
"We view the record, and all reasonable inferences
therefrom, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
party." Id. 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." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a).
II.
BACKGROUND
Carlo
Llorca worked as a road patrol deputy with the Collier County
Sheriff's Office. The named Lee County Plaintiffs worked
as follows: Kevin Calderone worked as a road patrol deputy
and as a detective; George Schwing worked as a road patrol
deputy; Michael Zaleski worked as a detective; and Selena Lee
worked as a traffic unit deputy. The Collier and Lee County
sheriffs required all deputies to arrive for their shifts
wearing a uniform and the following protective gear: a
"duty belt," a radio case, pepper mace, a baton
strap, a magazine pouch, a radio, a flashlight, handcuffs, a
holster, a first-responders pouch, and a ballistics vest. The
deputies were allowed to, and actually did, don and doff this
protective gear at home. They contend that the donning and
doffing process took a total of thirty minutes per shift. The
sheriffs did not pay the deputies for the time that they
spent donning and doffing the protective gear.
The
deputies also commuted to and from work in marked patrol
vehicles. The sheriffs required the deputies to have their
radios on during the commute, listen to calls in the district
through which they were driving, and respond to major calls
and emergencies. Additionally, the sheriffs required deputies
who commuted in marked patrol vehicles to observe the roads
for traffic violations and engage in general traffic law
enforcement during their commutes.[2] The sheriffs compensated the
deputies for any time that the deputies spent responding to
calls or emergencies or actually enforcing traffic laws
during their commutes. The sheriffs did not compensate road
patrol deputies or detectives for the time that those
deputies spent driving, listening to their radios, and
observing the roads for traffic law violations.[3]
III.
DISCUSSION
In
1938, the FLSA established minimum wage and overtime
compensation at one and one-half times the employee's
regular rate of pay for hours over a certain number per pay
period. 29 U.S.C. §§ 206(a), 207; Integrity
Staffing Sols., Inc. v. Busk, 135 S.Ct. 513, 516, 190
L.Ed.2d 410 (2014). Shortly after, the Supreme Court broadly
"defined 'work' as 'physical or mental
exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required
by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the
benefit of the employer and his business.'"
Integrity Staffing, 135 S.Ct. at 516 (quoting
Tenn. Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No.
123, 321 U.S. 590, 598, 64 S.Ct. 698, 703, 88 L.Ed. 949
(1944)). "Similarly, it defined 'the statutory
workweek' to 'includ[e] all time during which an
employee is necessarily required to be on the employer's
premises, on duty or at a prescribed workplace.'"
Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Anderson
v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S. 680, 690-91, 66
S.Ct. 1187, 1194, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946)). Applying these
definitions, the Court held that time spent traveling between
mine portals and underground work areas and time spent
walking from time clocks to work benches was compensable,
initiating a "flood of litigation." Id.
Congress
responded in 1947 with the Portal-to-Portal Act. Congress
"found that the FLSA had 'been interpreted
judicially in disregard of long-established customs,
practices, and contracts between employers and employees,
thereby creating wholly unexpected liabilities, immense in
amount and retroactive in operation, upon
employers.'" Id. at 516-17 (quoting from
the findings of Congress in 29 U.S.C. § 251(a)). The
Portal-to-Portal Act, as amended by the Employee Commuting
Flexibility Act of 1996, provides:
[N]o employer shall be subject to any liability or punishment
under the Fair Labor Standards Act . . . on account of the
failure of such employer to pay an employee minimum wages, or
to pay an employee overtime compensation, for or on account
of any of the following activities . . .
(1) walking, riding, or traveling to and from the actual
place of performance of the principal activity or activities
which such employee is employed to perform, and
(2) activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to
said principal activity or activities,
which occur either prior to the time on any particular
workday at which such employee commences, or subsequent to
the time on any particular workday at which he ceases, such
principal activity or activities. For purposes of this
subsection, the use of an employer's vehicle for travel
by an employee and activities performed by an employee which
are incidental to the use of such vehicle for commuting shall
not be considered part of the employee's principal
activities if the use of such vehicle for travel is within
the normal commuting area for the employer's business or
establishment and the use of the employer's vehicle is
subject to an agreement on the part of the employer and the
employee or representative of such employee.
29 U.S.C. § 254(a). The Supreme Court has long
interpreted the term "principal activity or
activities" in § 254 to include all activities that
are an "integral and indispensable part of the principal
activities." Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U.S. 247,
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