FLSA Lawsuit

FLSA Payments

Active Members

The Law Firm of Woodley & McGillivary has mailed the remaining portion of the FLSA settlement to Active members on February 12, 2013. This amount represents 30% of the award deemed liquidated damages. Although no taxes were withheld from these checks, members are reminded that this amount is considered taxable and they will receive a 1099 next year for the full amount. If you change your address in the next 12 months please notify Woodley and McGillivary. The amount that members received in their January 18, 2013 paychecks will be included in their 2013 W2.

Retired Members

The Law Firm of Woodley & McGillivary on February 15, 2013, will mail out to Retired members two checks representing the entire settlement amount from the FLSA lawsuit. One check will have applicable taxes withheld and members will receive a W2 next January for this check. The second check represents 30% of the award deemed liquidated damages. Although no taxes were withheld from these checks, members are reminded that this amount is considered taxable and they will receive a 1099 next year for the full amount. If you change your address in the next 12 months please notify Woodley and McGillivary.

Court Approves Overtime Pay Settlement Between City of NY & NYPD Sergeants

On November 16, 2012, Judge Shira Scheindlin of the Southern District of New York approved a $20 million settlement between the City of New York and NYPD police sergeants who had filed suit under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA") alleging that they were entitled to overtime pay. Under the settlement, the plaintiff sergeants will receive $14 million in back pay and $6 million in liquidated damages. The settlement ends litigation that was filed in April 2004.

"The Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) is extremely pleased by this settlement. Every day, thousands of police sergeants put themselves in the line of fire protecting the citizens and residents of New York," said Sgt. Ed Mullins, President of SBA. "Today's settlement gives our sergeants what they have earned for their tireless work for our City and the people that live here."

Stephen P. Younger, counsel for the Plaintiffs, remarked, "We are quite happy with this extraordinary outcome for our clients. For nearly a decade, we have fought for the rights of New York's police sergeants to secure the overtime pay guaranteed to them by law. This case now sets an historic precedent that NYPD police sergeants are entitled to overtime pay under federal law."

“This was a very important decision because it was the first case in the Court of Appeals involving the application of the so-called first responder regulation application to frontline supervisors,” said plaintiff’s co-counsel Gregory K. McGillivary. “From a municipal labor standpoint, this was a monumental victory. Most importantly, we are pleased that the police sergeants are finally going to receive the monies they deserve.”

Over 4,300 NYPD police sergeants participated in this FLSA lawsuit in order to recover overtime compensation mandated by Federal law. After initial decisions in the trial court had ruled that sergeants were not entitled to the FLSA overtime pay protections, on August 5, 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, deciding that the sergeants were not exempt from protection under the FLSA and, therefore, are entitled to overtime compensation.

After the case was sent back to the trial court, the parties entered into settlement negotiations. Through a court-assisted settlement process, both sides agreed to the terms that were approved at the November 15th fairness hearing.

As a reminder, the details of the case are as follows:

The period the settlement covers is all of the time that you were an active sergeant beginning three years before the date that your consent to sue form was filed in court up to November 1, 2012 or the date that you were no longer employed as a sergeant, whichever is earlier. Each plaintiff will receive credit for each month they were an active sergeant and the settlement distribution will be allocated on a pro rata share.

No portion of this settlement is pensionable.

This lawsuit is for unpaid overtime and liquidated damages and all monies received are, from an IRS standpoint, defined as compensation and will be taxable.

The settlement is to be paid from two different sources:

Approximately 70% will be in the form of a payroll check or direct deposit which will be included in the W2 for the year in which the check is issued.
Approximately 30% will in a separate check, a 1099 will be issued for this amount for the year in which it is paid.

Additional points:

The practice of sergeants going to the range on their own time has been suspended and we expect this to become permanent.
The City has begun tracking FLSA time for Sergeants, upon retirement you will be able to receive payment for any unused FLSA comp time at your current rate of pay.
The Police Department is barred from any retaliatory actions based upon a sergeant’s participation or testimony in the lawsuit.

Click here to check to see if you are a plaintiff in the 2004 Mullins case.

Accordingly, if you are not a plaintiff in the 2004 Mullins case, and you have been a Sergeant anytime from February 1, 2010 to the present, you must sign up for the new case AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to be potentially eligible to recover damages.

If you are not a plaintiff, please obtain a consent/retainer form to participate in the new lawsuit. You can obtain a form from your SBA delegate, the SBA office or you can download a form below. All forms MUST be returned to the SBA Office. It is a statutory requirement that you sign such a form to participate in an FLSA overtime case. If you are not sure if you are a plaintiff in the new FLSA case, please check the list below to make sure that your Tax Number is listed among the participants.