The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a district court ruling that a school district acted properly when it decided not to pay overtime wages to a regular employee for the extra time he spent as the school’s golf coach.
The plaintiff had alleged that he deserved the overtime pay, pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
For the last 20 years, plaintiff James Purdham has been employed as a safety and security assistant for Fairfax County Public Schools. Among his duties were monitoring the school building, assisting in investigations, and monitoring the arrival and departure of school buses. In addition to his regular full-time position, Purdham has served for the past 15 years as Hayfield Secondary School’s golf coach.
The appeals court noted that Purdham is free to relinquish his coaching duties at any time without an adverse impact on his full-time security position.
As part of his coaching responsibilities, Purdham maintains a varsity golf squad of 12 to 16 students as well as a “B” team. The golf season begins the first week of August and runs through November. After tryouts, the regular competitive season includes eight to 10 golf competitions in addition to daily practices. At the end of the regular season, the team participates in several tournaments. Purdham also transports players to and from the golf course, and he occasionally drives them to their homes.
In addition to his coaching duties during the regular season, Purdham also schedules the upcoming season; responds to telephone calls, e-mails, and text messages from parents and players; arranges the golf team finances; holds an annual interest meeting for prospective players; arranges for the team to complete a community service project; and oversees the team’s fundraising activities. He has estimated that he spends 400 to 450 hours annually on golf coaching activities. The School Board permits Purdham to work on coaching activities during his regular work day. In addition, when the golf team has a tournament or activity that occurs during Purdham’s normal working hours, the School Board permits him and other coaches to use paid administrative leave while he is away from his regular duties.
Purdham receives reimbursement for his expenses, including a mileage allowance, for his coaching activities. Purdham also receives a stipend from the School Board in consideration for his services as a coach. The School Board’s stipend policy mirrors that of other school systems in close proximity to Fairfax County. When Purdham first began coaching, more than a decade before filing suit, his stipend was between $500 and $800. More recently, Purdham’s stipend had increased to $2,114 for the 2008-09 school year (and slightly less than that for the 2007-08 school year). The stipends for all coaches of a particular sport are the same, regardless of how many hours each coach devotes to coaching activities and regardless of a team’s performance. The majority of the Fairfax County coaches are, like Purdham, regular employees of the school board. The most common regular position among golf coaches was as a health and physical education teacher. The record shows that the full-time salaries among this group ranged from $30,191 to $90,076.
If a coach decides to relinquish his or her position and a replacement is needed, the replacement coach will receive the same stipend that the predecessor received. That is, the School Board does not negotiate with prospective coaches regarding the stipend. Under School Board policy, if a coach is terminated during the season and disputes the termination, the coach is entitled to file a grievance.
“Purdham’s claims rest significantly on the fact that for a brief period, the School Board in fact paid its coaches overtime, but then it ceased paying overtime,” wrote the panel. “… (T)he School Board’s brief deviation from its longstanding practice of not paying overtime provides scant support for Purdham’s claims.”
The impetus for the decision to start paying overtime came in 2004, when the School Board “learned of FLSA-related litigation against other school districts; accordingly, it conducted a wage-hour audit of similarly-situated schools in order to determine whether coaches were being managed correctly. As a result of its study, the School Board decided, out of ‘an abundance of caution,’ to pay non-exempt employees overtime wages based on a calculation of the hours they had devoted to coaching activities. Thus, Purdham and his peers received retroactive payments representing unpaid overtime for hours devoted to coaching activities for the 2003-05 golf seasons. Also, as a result of the audit, the School Board issued contracts to coaches for the 2005-06 school year, providing that the coaches were to be paid $14 per hour and that they were entitled to time and a half in overtime wages.
“Importantly, when the School Board determined to pay the coaches retroactive overtime and undertook to implement contractual arrangements with coaches, it also made a policy decision that, effective July 1, 2006, it would no longer permit non-exempt employees such as Purdham to coach or participate in supplemental or extra-curricular activities. This decision was based primarily if not solely on the potential complications associated with documenting coaches’ hours. However, before the School Board implemented its new policy, the Department of Labor issued a guidance opinion letter about school coaching and FLSA compliance. Based on this new guidance from the Department of Labor, the School Board concluded that its full-time non-exempt employees were properly deemed ‘volunteers’ in connection with their coaching activities and thus not eligible for overtime compensation. As a result, the School Board abandoned its policy of prohibiting non-exempt employees from coaching.”
Purdham sued, pursuant to the FLSA. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment.
The district court granted the School Board’s motion for summary judgment, finding that Purdham was not an “employee” with respect to his services as the coach of the golf team but instead, was to be deemed a “volunteer.” The court reasoned that Purdham was a volunteer because Purdham was not doing the same type of work as required by his regular position as a security assistant and because the stipend he received was a ‘nominal fee’ authorized by law to be paid to volunteers.”
Purdham appealed.
Like the lower court, the panel “determined that the school board properly deemed the employee a volunteer with respect to his services as a coach because:
“(1) his employment as a security assistant was not dependent on his coaching and the fact that he may have been motivated, in part, by his stipend did not substantially support his claim to employee status,
“(2) neither the parties’ descriptive terms nor the definition of a volunteer under state law controlled the determination,
“(3) the school board did not fatally deviate from its longtime view that coaches should be treated as volunteers by temporarily deciding to pay overtime wages to coaches in order to ensure compliance with the FLSA,
“(4) a blanket prohibition on the provision of paid administrative leave to volunteers would be inconsistent with the statutory goals, and
“(5) the stipend he received was a ‘nominal fee’ as permitted for volunteers under the FLSA.”
James Purdham et al. v. Fairfax County School Board et al.; 4th Cir.;
No. 10-1048, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 4644; 3/10/11
Attorneys of Record: (for appellant) Nils George Peterson, Jr., Arlington, Virginia.
(for appellee) Thomas Patrick Murphy, HUNTON & WILLIAMS, LLP, McLean, Virginia.
