Jury Rules Against Paying Cops, Dets. For Brief Overtime

A Manhattan jury last week decided paying city cops for overtime lasting less than 15 minutes wasn't worth the trouble it would cause the NYPD.

A class-action lawsuit on behalf of Police Officers and Detectives, which started in 2002, charged that the city violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by, among other things, not paying police officers overtime accrued in small amounts. "The jury found that less than 15 minutes was too small an amount of time to be bothered with to justify that amount of work," said Assistant Corp. Counsel James Lemonedes, who handled the case.

Not a Frequent Occurrence

A Patrolmen's Benevolent Association official who worked on the case said a calculation found that there were insufficient instances of brief overtime to justify the cost of fixing the problem.

After a three-week trial, the jury dismissed two claims against the city and said a third could not be decided by class action, leaving the door open for individual challenges by police officers. Manhattan Judge Shira Scheindlin awarded the police officers more than $6 million in damages in August in other parts of the same case.

"We are incredibly pleased," said Mr. Lemonedes, who added the police officers sought more than $500 million in damages. Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo said in a statement that the decision would save the city "hundreds of millions of dollars" on this case alone. "In these tough economic times, every dollar counts," he said.

PBA President Patrick J. Lynch contended the earlier jury verdict was a bigger victory for police officers. "The union set out to bring the NYPD's pay and leave practices, which date back to the mid-1980s, into compliance with the FLSA. A Federal jury has now largely agreed with the PBA, confirming that the NYPD was acting unlawfully on four of the five claims brought by the individual police officers, awarding our officers, active and retired, what will likely be in excess of $6 million in damages. The city must now compute appropriate overtime pay rates and compensate our members for work schedules that exceed federal work hour standards."

No Unfair 'Comp' Denials

The jury dismissed a claim that NYPD officers were being denied comp days. Mr. Lemonedes said the jury agreed with the city that it could deny comp days when doing so would cause an "undue disruption" on the police force. He said there was a 500-plaintiff survey that found 90 percent of officers were granted their last time-off request and 75 percent were never denied.

In a separate part of the case, the jury found a 35-hour cap placed on paid overtime should not be decided collectively because the merits of the individual claims were so different. "The claim has been thrown out but that doesn't mean the officer can't refile the claim," said Mr. Lemonedes. "I wouldn't say it opens any door, but it doesn't close the door." A PBA official who worked on the case said two of the four officers involved won their individual claims.

When the PBA reached a new contract with the city in August, it agreed to settle six lawsuits, but this was not among them.