Franklin v. City of Kettering, Ohio

Plaintiff-appellants are police patrol officers of defendant city of Kettering, Ohio. Plaintiffs brought this action asserting that they are entitled to unpaid overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). On cross motions for summary judgment, the district court granted defendant's motion. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgment of the magistrate judge granting summary judgment to defendant.

I.

Defendant city of Kettering employs sixty-three police patrol officers. In 1970, Kettering recognized the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) as the collective bargaining representative of the police patrol officers. Kettering and FOP have negotiated a series of collective bargaining agreements, including the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) effective from July 21, 1997 through March 5, 2000, covering the time relevant to this case.

Under the terms of the CBA, Kettering pays the officers an hourly wage for regular hours. The officers receive a shift differential of an additional eighty cents ($.80) per hour for hours worked between 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. on a shift in which at least half the hours are within that timeframe. The officers also receive a weekend differential of an additional ten cents ($.10) per hour for hours worked on Saturdays or Sundays. Officers receive an additional one dollar ($1.00) per hour for each hour of their shift for which they are designated to serve as officer-in-charge. The CBA also provides terms for overtime payment. Kettering pays the officers one and a half times their straight hourly pay rate for any hours worked in excess of forty hours per week and for any time worked beyond the officer's normal work day. In calculating an officer's compensation, Kettering multiplies the number of straight time hours by the officer's hourly rate. Kettering multiples the number of overtime hours worked by one and a half times the officer's hourly rate. Then Kettering multiplies the number of straight time hours by any applicable differentials. The city does not include the shift or weekend differentials in the regular rate of pay when calculating overtime compensation, nor does it multiply the number of overtime hours by any applicable differential.

Kettering's police officers operate on a duty schedule that repeats every six weeks. Each officer works six days on, two days off, and has four days off every sixth week. The officers are divided among six different scheduling groups (A-F), each of which maintains this same schedule but starts the repeating six week cycle on a different week.

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Court's opinion.

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the judgment of the magistrate judge granting summary judgment to defendant city of Kettering.

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