Shawn Meeks v. Pacso County Sheriff

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 16-16932
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 8:15-cv-01460-SCB-AEP
SHAWN MEEKS, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
PASCO COUNTY SHERIFF,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
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(May 15, 2017)
Before TJOFLAT, WILSON, and WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Shawn Meeks, a former Pasco County Sheriff’s deputy, sued the Sheriff
under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), alleging that the Sheriff violated the
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FLSA by failing to pay him for time he spent transporting his patrol car to and
from a secured parking location. The district court granted summary judgment to
Meeks and awarded him liquidated damages. This is the Sheriff’s appeal.
The Sheriff argues that (1) Meeks is not entitled to summary judgment
because Meeks’s transporting his patrol car was not compensable activity under the
FLSA and (2) Meeks is not entitled to liquidated damages because the Sheriff has a
viable good-faith defense to liquidated damages. We are unconvinced. We affirm
the district court.1
I
Meeks was employed by the Sheriff as a Road Patrol Deputy from July 11,
2011 to March 1, 2015. During his tenure with the Sheriff, Meeks was assigned a
patrol car for use in carrying out his patrol duties. Because Meeks lived more than
fifteen miles outside of Pasco County, the Sheriff did not allow him to store his
patrol car at home when he was not working. Instead, he was required to store the
car at a secure location within Pasco County.
Pursuant to the Sheriff’s secure-location policy, Meeks stored his patrol car
at one of the Sheriff’s Patrol Division Offices. Each morning, Meeks drove his
personal car to the Patrol Division Office, parked, and retrieved his patrol car. He
1 In addition to appealing the grant of summary judgment and award of liquidated
damages to Meeks, the Sheriff appeals the denial of its motion for summary judgment.
Consistent with our finding that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to
Meeks, we find no error in the court’s denial of the Sheriff’s motion.
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then transported the patrol car to his designated patrol zone. During Meeks’s drive
to his zone, the Sheriff required him to activate his police radio and Automatic
Vehicle Locator System and to respond as needed to emergencies. At the
conclusion of Meeks’s shift, he transported his patrol car from his patrol zone to
the Patrol Division Office, parked, and drove his personal car home.
Unless Meeks responded to an emergency while transporting his patrol car
between the Patrol Division Office and his patrol zone, the Sheriff did not
compensate him for that transportation time.
On June 22, 2015, Meeks filed a complaint in district court against the
Sheriff, claiming that the Sheriff violated the FLSA’s overtime provisions by not
paying him for the time he spent transporting his patrol car between the Patrol
Division Office and his patrol zone. Meeks and the Sheriff both moved for
summary judgment. The district court granted Meeks’s motion, denied the
Sheriff’s motion, and awarded Meeks liquidated damages. The court concluded
that Meeks’s transporting his patrol car between the Patrol Division Office and his
patrol zone was compensable activity because the transporting was “integral and
indispensable” to performing his patrol duties. The court also concluded that
Meeks is entitled to liquidated damages under the FLSA. The Sheriff argued that it
acted in good faith in not paying Meeks and that Meeks is therefore not entitled to
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liquidated damages. But the court rejected that argument, finding, among other
things, that the Sheriff offered “no real evidence” of good faith.
II
Reviewing the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Meeks de novo
and taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the Sheriff, see Quigg v.
Thomas Cty. Sch. Dist., 814 F.3d 1227, 1235 (11th Cir. 2016), we find no error.
Meeks’s transporting his patrol car between the Patrol Division Office and his
patrol zone was compensable activity.
The FLSA’s overtime provisions require employers, including law
enforcement agencies, to provide employees overtime compensation when they
work more than a certain number of hours in a single work period. See 29 U.S.C.
§ 207(a), (k); 29 C.F.R. § 553.230. However, an employer is not required to
compensate an employee for all of the employee’s time that is associated with
work. See 29 U.S.C. § 254(a).
The Portal-to-Portal Act, which amended the FLSA, identifies the employee
activities that are not compensable under the FLSA. Id. An employer is not
required to pay an employee for (1) “traveling to and from the actual place of
performance of the principal activity or activities which [the] employee is
employed to perform” or (2) “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to
[the employee’s] principal activity or activities.” Id. But an employee’s principal
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activity or activities are of course compensable. See Integrity Staffing Sols., Inc., v.
Busk, 574 U.S. ___, ___, 135 S. Ct. 513, 517–18 (2014).
The phrase “principal activity or activities” includes “all activities which are
an integral and indispensable part of” the duties “that an employee is employed to
perform.” See id. at 517 (internal quotation marks omitted). An activity is integral
and indispensable to an employee’s principal activities if the activity “is an
intrinsic element of those activities and one with which the employee cannot
dispense if he is to perform [the] activities.” Id.
Meeks’s transporting his patrol car between the Patrol Division Office and
his patrol zone was a compensable activity because it was an “intrinsic element” of
his principal activities—his patrol duties. See id. Meeks’s patrol car was integral
to his patrol duties; he relied on the car and its police radio to maintain contact
with the Sheriff and to respond to calls assigned by the Sheriff. And as part of his
duties as a Road Patrol Deputy who lived more than fifteen miles outside of Pasco
County, Meeks had to store the car at a secure location in Pasco County. Meeks’s
patrol duties, then, required him to transport the car between a secure location such
as the Patrol Division Office and his patrol zone. Absent that transporting, Meeks
could not have patrolled his zone and fulfilled his duties as a Road Patrol Deputy.
In other words, Meeks could not have “dispense[d]” with transporting his patrol
car “if he [wa]s to perform” his duties. See id.
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The relevant regulations further confirm that Meeks’s transporting his patrol
car was a compensable activity. The Department of Labor’s regulations state:
“Where an employee is required to report at a meeting place to . . . pick up and to
carry tools, the travel from the designated place to the work place is part of the
day’s work, and must be counted as hours worked . . . .” 29 C.F.R. § 785.38.
Here, the Sheriff required Meeks to report to a “designated place” (a secured
parking location) to “pick up” and transport an important “tool[]” (his patrol car) to
his “work place” (his patrol zone). See id. Meeks’s time spent transporting the car
was therefore compensable. See id.
III
We also find no error in the district court’s determination that the Sheriff
does not have a viable good-faith defense.
An employer who violates the FLSA’s overtime provisions is liable to the
employee for the employee’s unpaid overtime compensation and for liquidated
damages equal to that unpaid overtime compensation. 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). If,
however, “the employer shows to the satisfaction of the court that the act or
omission giving rise to [the violation] was in good faith and that [it] had reasonable
grounds for believing that [the] act or omission was not a violation[,] . . . the court
may, in its sound discretion, award no liquidated damages.” 29 U.S.C. § 260; see
also Spires v. Ben Hill Cty., 980 F.2d 683, 689 (11th Cir. 1993) (“[L]iquidated
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damages are mandatory absent a showing of good faith.”). This good-faith defense
to liquidated damages requires “an employer [to] show that it acted with both
objective and subjective good faith.” Rodriguez v. Farm Stores Grocery, Inc., 518
F.3d 1259, 1272 (11th Cir. 2008).
Despite “bear[ing] the burden of proving” good faith, the Sheriff has offered
no evidence that supports a good-faith finding. See Spires, 980 F.2d at 689.
Indeed, the evidence reveals that the Sheriff “knew or had reason to know that” its
failure to compensate officers like Meeks for time spent transporting their patrol
cars violated the FLSA. See Joiner v. City of Macon, 814 F.2d 1537, 1539 (11th
Cir. 1987) (“An employer, who knew or had reason to know that the FLSA
applied, c[an] not establish good faith as a defense.”). During Meeks’s
employment, the Sheriff (1) was aware that the Department of Labor was
investigating that compensation practice and (2) was familiar with a decision from
this court that called into question the legality of the practice.
IV
We find no error in the district court’s decision. Even taking the evidence in
the light most favorable to the Sheriff, no genuine issue exists as to whether the
Sheriff violated the FLSA. Further, the Sheriff does not have a viable good-faith
defense to liquidated damages.
AFFIRMED.
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