Stewart v. City of Greensboro

HARVEY ELLIS STEWART, III Plaintiff, v. CITY OF GREENSBORO, GEORGIA, Defendant.

No. 3:18-CV-129 (CAR)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA ATHENS DIVISION

March 31, 2020

ORDER ON MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Plaintiff Harvey Ellis Stewart, III brings this action for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. § 201, et seq., alleging Defendant the City of Greensboro, Georgia ("the City") failed to compensate him for overtime and terminated him in retaliation for complaining about his lack of pay. Stewart also alleges the City violated Georgia law for breach of contract; intentional infliction of emotion distress; and negligent hiring, supervision, and retention of then-Chief of Police Ossie Mapp. Before the Court is the City's Motion for Summary Judgment. Having read and considered the Motion, the record in this case, the applicable law, and the parties' arguments, the Court HEREBY GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART the City's Motion for Summary Judgment [Doc. 15]. Specifically, the Court DENIES summary judgment for the City on Stewart's claims for failure to pay overtime and retaliation under the FLSA, and GRANTS summary judgment for the City on Stewart's state law claims for breach of contract; intentional infliction of emotional distress; and negligent hiring, supervision, and retention.

LEGAL STANDARD

Summary judgment is proper if the movant "shows that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law."¹ Not all factual disputes render summary judgment inappropriate; only a genuine issue of material fact will defeat a properly supported motion for summary judgment.² This means that summary judgment may be granted if there is insufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to return a verdict for the nonmoving party or, in other words, if reasonable minds could not differ as to the verdict.³

On summary judgment, the Court must view the evidence and all justifiable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party; the Court may not make credibility determinations or weigh the evidence.⁴ The moving party "always bears the initial responsibility of informing the court of the basis for its motion, and identifying those portions of the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact" and that entitle it to a judgment as a matter of law.⁵ Ifthe moving party discharges this burden, the burden then shifts to the nonmoving party to respond by setting forth specific evidence in the record and articulating the precise manner in which that evidence creates a genuine issue of material fact or that the moving party is not entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.⁶ This evidence must consist of more than mere conclusory allegations or legal conclusions.⁷

BACKGROUND

The City employed Stewart as a police officer in its Police Department from 2011, until Chief of Police Ossie Mapp terminated him on September 11, 2017. Stewart contends Chief Mapp unlawfully altered his timesheets, failed to properly pay him overtime compensation, and fired him in retaliation for complaining about the failure to properly compensate him. After Chief Mapp fired him, Stewart met with the City Manager, Larry Postell, and contends he and Postell reached a verbal agreement that in exchange for Stewart's voluntary resignation, Stewart would not pursue legal action against the City, and the City would pay him two weeks of pay and report the separation of his employment to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council ("POST") as voluntary. Stewart, however, never received two weeks of pay, and the City reported to POST that Stewart resigned in lieu of termination, causing him to suffer extreme stress. The City denies Stewart's allegations. The City contends it appropriately compensatedStewart for all of the hours he worked, but even if it did fail to pay him some overtime, any such amount is negligible and should be disregarded. The City states it terminated Stewart due to his racist remarks on several occasions, and any agreement with the City Manager is not binding on the City. The facts, taken in the light most favorable to Stewart as the nonmoving party are as follows:

Stewart's Duties and Work Hours with the City's Police Department

On June 13, 2011, the City hired Stewart as a patrol officer in its Police Department. Almost immediately thereafter, he was promoted to Corporal, and in late October 2013, he was promoted to Lieutenant, the position he held until his employment ended in September 2017. Stewart reported directly to Sergeant Randy Barnhart, who reported to Captain Rodricus Monford. Captain Monford, in turn, reported to Chief Ossie Mapp, who held the highest position of authority at the Police Department throughout Plaintiff's employment.⁸

Throughout Stewart's employment (other than for a brief period in 2015), he was generally scheduled to work twelve-hour rotating shifts (6:00am to 6:00pm) of 36 and 48 hour weekly schedules, in which one week he would work Wednesday, Thursday, and Monday, and the next week he would work Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.⁹ Thus, Stewart was generally scheduled to work 168 hours every 28 days. The City paidhim weekly.¹⁰ Like all employees, Stewart clocked in and out each workday using the Police Department's fingerprint scan system.¹¹ Stewart did not separately record his hours apart from clocking in and out using the Police Department's fingerprint scan system.

The majority of Stewart's duties consisted of patrolling the City and responding to calls. The calls were often scheduled at or near the end of a shift, and Stewart testified that he was not always able to immediately end his shifts on the scheduled time.¹² Stewart testified that Chief Mapp explicitly directed him to perform other duties, which included transporting Chief Mapp for Chief Mapp's personal matters and attending community events such as church events/services, municipal court proceedings, career expositions, and others.¹³

Stewart consistently received positive performance reviews, pay raises, and bonuses throughout his employment. From 2013 through 2016, he received "meet and exceed expectations" ratings on his performance reviews.¹⁴ In 2015, his performance evaluation stated, "Pleasure to have on the team!" and "Works well with others." On August 10, 2016, Stewart received his first reprimand for failing to exercise patience and displaying sarcasm when he responded to a call.¹⁵ Stewart states that he received a verbalreprimand, not a written reprimand, for this incident.¹⁶ Nonetheless, he received a "meet and exceed expectations" for his last performance review for June 2016 to December 2016.¹⁷ Stewart was compensated on an hourly basis and received a 3% raise in 2016 and another 3% raise in 2017.¹⁸

The City's Overtime Procedures

At all relevant times, the Police Department employed a 28-day work period for sworn officers, including Stewart. For each 28-day work period, an officer was paid for 40 hours of work for the first three weeks, and 51 hours for the fourth week, totaling 171 hours.¹⁹ The City was required to pay overtime compensation for the hours each officer worked over 171 within the 28-day work period.²⁰ If an employee took any type of leave during the work period, such as sick or vacation leave, then that leave time did not count toward hours worked for calculating overtime during that work period.²¹ The City paid all overtime on the fourth week.

Either Captain Monford or Chief Mapp was supposed to approve Stewart's overtime, and Stewart was required to submit an overtime sheet for the overtime hours he worked.²² Each week on Tuesday mornings, Chief Mapp's administrative assistant,Tramekia Saunders, printed out the reports from the fingerprint scanning system, referred to as the "detailed payroll reports," and she would go through them to make sure they were accurate and complete.²³ Occasionally, Saunders would go into the fingerprint scanning system and edit any clock-in or clock-out time that was missing or add in paid leave that an employee took in a given week, such as sick leave, vacation leave, or a paid holiday.²⁴ Saunders would also cross-reference the detailed payroll reports with any overtime sheets that employee had submitted.²⁵ She would provide the detailed payroll reports and the overtime sheets to Chief Mapp for approval (or to Captain Monford in the Chief's absence). When he reviewed the reports, Chief Mapp would reduce time when an officer failed to submit an overtime sheet, failed to obtain approval for overtime, or failed to clock out for several minutes when an employee finished working his or her shift.²⁶

After Chief Mapp or Captain Monford approved the detailed payroll reports, an employee would deliver the reports to Billing and Payroll Clerk Jolene Fleeman for processing.²⁷ For each 28-day work period, Fleeman calculated by hand whether an employee had earned overtime, and she maintained those calculations as part of herduties as Payroll and Billing Clerk, including her calculations for whether Stewart earned overtime in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Stewart's Overtime Hours and Complaints

Stewart claims Chief Mapp routinely reduced his hours to 171 per work period to avoid paying him overtime.²⁸ Moreover, Stewart claims that Chief Mapp explicitly told him at times not to submit an overtime sheet or account for certain events Chief Mapp required him to attend.²⁹ Chief Mapp specifically told Stewart to clock out at his scheduled shift-end times even though Stewart was required to attend community events that lasted beyond his shift.³⁰ Even when Chief Mapp allowed Stewart to submit his overtime sheet, Stewart was only compensated for some, but not all, of the time he was required to work.³¹ Corporal Randy Barnhart also stated that he ...