Bergemann v. The State Of R.I.

SCOTT BERGEMANN, et al., Plaintiffs

v. THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND, THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, and GINA M. RAIMONDO in her official capacity as Treasurer of the State of Rhode Island, Defendants

C.A. No. 09-150ML

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND

Dated: March 18, 2011

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Mary M. Lisi, Chief United States District Judge.

The plaintiffs, a group of Rhode Island Environmental Police Officers ("EPOs"), bring this action against the State of Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (the "State"), to recover allegedly unpaid wages and to seek retroactive and future retirement contributions related to "holiday pay." This matter is before the Court on the EPOs' motion for partial summary judgment and the State's motion for summary judgment. For the reasons discussed below, the plaintiffs' motion is DENIED, and the defendants' motion is GRANTED.

I. Background Facts and Procedural History

(A) The Settlement Agreements

The disagreements giving rise to this litigation reach back to 1985, when the Supreme Court determined that state employees are entitled to the protection of the wage and hour provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"). Garcia v. San AntonioMetropolitan Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 105 S.Ct. 1005, 83 L.Ed.2 1016 (1985)(holding that municipal transit authority is not immune from minimum wage and overtime requirements of the FLSA). In 1986, the plaintiffs' union, Local 2881, Council 94 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees ("Council 94") and the State entered into a settlement agreement which provided that EPOs (then titled "Conservation Officers") were entitled to overtime pay if they worked more than 171 hours in a 28 day work cycle. 1986 Agreement ¶ 6. The agreement also addressed pay increases for certain positions and set a prospective requirement for college degrees. Id. ¶¶ 1, 4. In consideration, Council 94 agreed to withdraw two pending arbitration claims for compensatory time. Id. at ¶ 5.

In 1993, Council 94 and the State entered into a second settlement agreement which addressed the computation of holiday hours. Pursuant to this agreement, for any 28 day work cycle within which a holiday fell on an EPO's scheduled workday, the EPO was credited with (1) seven hours worked, and (2) the hours actually worked in excess of seven hours, "solely for the purpose of computing hours worked" for the rest of the work cycle. 1993 Agreement at 5 2. If the holiday in a 28 day work cycle fell on an EPO's scheduled day off, the EPO was credited only with the hours actually worked in excess of seven hours on that holiday. Id. In consideration for entering this agreement (applicable only to then unionized RIDEM employees), Council 94 withdrew eight relatedgrievances. Id. at 55 1, 2.

In late 1995, a group of 35 EPOs, including Scott Bergemann ("Bergemann") and 19 other EPOs who are plaintiffs in the instant case, filed suit in this Court under the FLSA "for defendants' alleged failure to satisfy certain overtime and wage provisions contained in a [CBA]." Bergemann v. Rhode Island, 958 F. Supp. 61, 65 (D.R.I. 1997). The plaintiffs also alleged state law claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, violation of due process, and breach of prior judgment. Because the Court determined that 11^th Amendment immunity barred the EPOs' claims against the State, the case was dismissed, without prejudice, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Bergemann v. Rhode Island, 958 F.Supp. at 70.

In December 1997, the State and Council 94 entered into a third settlement agreement (the "1997 Agreement")¹. In consideration of the Union's withdrawal of six arbitration requests or grievances related to overtime, lunch periods, and vacation, the 1997 Agreement, inter alia, changed the job classifications from Conservation Officers to EPOs and raised their respective pay grades significantly. 1997 Agreement 55 1, 9. With the exception of classification EPO4 (previously held by the Deputy Chief of Enforcement, a non-union position), EPO positions are classified as non-standard positions with a peculiar work schedule. EPOs are assigned a four day on/two day off schedule. Union employees areeligible for compensatory overtime, after having worked one hundred and twenty-eight hours in a twenty-four day period. Such compensatory overtime is calculated at the rate of time and one half. Hours are credited as worked pursuant to the CBA and in accordance with those provisions which apply to standard employees. 1997 Agreement ¶ 5.

Specifically, the 1997 Agreement states:

The classifications of EPO1, EPO2 and EPO3 shall hold a peculiar work week designation of Non-Standard/Forty hours. The employees covered by this Agreement shall accrue vacation, sick and personal time hours at the rates designated for forty (40) hour per week employees. All leave discharges shall be based on and account for an eight (8) hour scheduled work day, which shall include breaks and lunch periods as employees are considered "engaged to be waiting." All current time balances will be recalculated and adjusted so that employees maintain the same number of whole days on record under the new leave accrual rates for a forty (40) hour work week. The hourly rate of pay shall be calculated based on a Non-Standard/thirty-five (35) hour per week, seven (7) hour per day standard work week. 1997 Agreement ¶ 6. (Emphasis added).

With respect to shift differential, ² the 1997 Agreement provides that "[s]hift differential shall be calculated on the basis of a thirty-seven and one half (37.5) hour work week andshall be nine hundred and seventy-five dollars ($975) per year." 1997 Agreement ¶ 11.

Pursuant to Section 2 of the 1997 Agreement, Council 94 agreed to withdraw the pending arbitration requests and grievances. 1997 Agreement ¶ 2. In addition, the 1997 Agreement provides that

"[t]he Conservation Officers and the Union shall not initiate any further legal action against [the State] and shall accept the terms of this agreement as full and final settlement of any claims that they have against [the State] regarding any of the issues discussed in the agreement." 1997 Agreement ¶ 3.

Finally, the 1997 Agreement contains a severability clause:

If any part or provision of this Agreement, or application thereof to any person, entity, or circumstances be adjudged invalid by any court of competent jurisdiction, the judgement shall be confined in its operation to the part of or provision of or application directly involved in the controversy in which the judgment shall have been rendered and shall not affect or impair the validity of the remainder of this Agreement or the application thereof to other persons, entities, or circumstances. In the event that a provision of this agreement is determined to be invalid, the parties agree to renegotiate such provision. 1997 Agreement ¶ 14.³

(B) Bergemann's Dispute Over Meal Periods

According to EPO Bergemann, in January 1999, he requested that Council 94 file a grievance regarding non-payment of meal periods. Bergemann Affidavit, Pltfs.' Ex. 13 ¶ 5, Docket No. 37-12.Bergemann was advised by Ray Larson, president of Council 94, that he could not file another grievance regarding this issue because the matter had already been resolved in the 1997 Settlement Agreement. Id. at ¶ 6.

In 2001, Bergemann filed a further grievance, requesting that the EPOs be paid according to a different work week. The issue was sent for arbitration; however, after the State Labor Relation Administrator forwarded a draft complaint to Council 94, alleging that the grievance was in violation of the 1997 Agreement, Council 94 withdrew the case from arbitration. Defs.' Ex. P.

On February 18, 2004, Bergemann requested a judicial procedure hearing by a National AFSCME Judicial Panel.⁴ Defs.' Ex. O. Essentially, Bergemann alleged that Council 94 failed to represent its membership and that Council 94 staff was incompetent and "acting in collusion with management." Id. at page 4 of 5. Relative to the instant case, Bergemann alleged, inter alia, that the State had breached the 1997 Agreement and that grievances had been filed. Id. at page 2-3 of 5. Bergemann explained that the EPOs believed that the 1997 Agreement would compensate them for 1952 hours of work annually (244 eight hour days on a four on/two off shift), but that they received only compensation for 1820 hours annually (244 seven and one half hour days). Bergemann arrived atthis conclusion by (1) multiplying the EPOs' hourly rates by 1820 hours and (2) by observing that court officers and EPOs with the same pay grade and annual wage are assigned the same hourly rate, but that court officers work 1820 hours per year, whereas EPOs work 1952 hours. Id. at page 3 of 5. According to Bergemann, he filed a grievance and "followed [ ] through all the steps;" the grievance was lost at levels 2 and 3; and a slated arbitration was dropped. Bergemann also asserted that a grievance filed in 1999 was slated for arbitration in October 2002 and then postponed to February 2003. Id. at page 4 of 5.

On its part, Council 94's counsel informed the Judicial Panel on March 22, 2004 that Bergemann had filed a grievance in 2001, seeking payment for EPOs according to a different work week. Defs.' Ex. P. The State had responded by sending a draft complaint to Council 94, in which it alleged that the grievance related to lunch periods, which had already been resolved, and that it was in violation of the 1997 Agreement. In addition, the State sought a declaration that the grievance was not arbitrable and that the 1997 Agreement was now void. Defs.' Ex. I. According to O'Neill, he recommended that Bergemann's grievance be withdrawn because it was filed 3 years too late and involved an issue already settled in the 1997 Agreement. Id. at page 1 of 3. O'Neill also advised Bergemann that "if the matter was not withdrawn from arbitration the State could...