Third Circuit Ruling FLSA Overtime Wages
On May 23, 2016 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that truck drivers who mainly drove intrastate, and only incidentally or occasionally drove interstate during their business, were entitled to the benefits of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act (PMWA) regarding overtime pay rates. Mazzarella v. Fast Rig Support, LLC, 823 F.3d 786 (3d Cir. 2016). Drivers for a trucking company claimed that they often worked over forty hour weeks, and yet were only compensated for overtime when they worked over forty-five hour weeks. The trucking company attempted to argue that because it was a motor carrier, under the Department of Transportation’s jurisdiction, and its business transporting water to fracking sites involved transporting an item between “a State and a place in another State” it was consequently exempt from the FLSA through the Motor Carrier Act (MCA).
The Third Circuit however rejected the trucking company’s representation and classification of the nature of its business. The Court found that the operations of the drivers in their work was not part of a “continuous stream of interstate travel” that would fall under the MCA’s exemption to the FLSA. All evidence presented by the trucking companies demonstrated that their operations only occasionally and incidentally impacted interstate commerce. Their operations that only occasionally entailed driving to other states were not part of a “practical continuity of movement in interstate commerce”. The Court ruled that exemptions to FLSA should be narrowly construed against the employer to ensure employees are properly protected. The high burden of proving an exemption to the FLSA’s overtime requirements was not met by the mere statements and unspecific evidence put forward by the company to demonstrate the interstate nature of its employees’ operations. The truck drivers’ award of $31,000 was affirmed by the Court to compensate them for the overtime worked and guarantee their protection under the FLSA.
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