An Illinois police officers’ union had bargained with management that any officer working more than 171 hours in a 28-day period could be awarded 90 minutes of compensatory time off for each overtime hour worked—up to a limit of 480 accumulated hours of comp time. But several officers sued, charging that the department somehow didn’t get around to allowing them to use the time.
What happened. Chicago’s police department management believed that watch commanders and shift supervisors had the right to decide whether comp time could be granted. Further, the decision makers routinely rejected requests for time off and simply returned applications to the officers, telling them to apply again. In effect, they said, ‘Ask some other time,’ without suggesting when and without offering any scheduling reasons for the rejections.
“Harding” and other officers charged in court that the department violated their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to grant time-off requests in the “reasonable period” required by the law. A judge in federal district court not only agreed with the officers that their rights had been violated but also issued an injunction against the police department. In it, he specified schedules and procedures for the department to use in administering its comp time program. The department appealed to the 7th Circuit, which covers Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
What the court said. Appellate judges acknowledged that circuit courts have been split on the issue of whether a public employer can disregard an employee’s request to use comp time on a particular date. The 5th (LA, MS, TX) and 9th (AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, WA) Circuits have ruled that employers can do so, while the 6th (KY, MI, OH, TN) and the Department of Labor have decided against employers.
In this case, judges took a dim view of the fact that the police department kept no records regarding requests for comp time. Stressing that comp time is a substitute for overtime pay, judges ruled that the department was not making time available in a reasonable period. But they also rejected the district court’s injunction, saying it was inappropriate. They sent the case back to that court to determine proper damage awards to the officers. Heitmann et al. v. Chicago, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, No. 08-1555 (2009).
Point to remember: The department’s failure to keep records penalized it doubly. First, management couldn’t show how long it took an officer to get his time off or how many requests had to be made. Second, it gave the appearance that management didn’t consider granting comp time important.
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