FLSA Lawsuit

U.S. Court of Appeals For The Second Circuit Rules That
NYPD Police Sergeants Are Entitled To FLSA Overtime

President Ed Mullins and the SBA Executive Board are pleased to report that on August 5, 2011, in Mullins v. City of New York, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled, New York City Police Sergeants are entitled to overtime compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and that the City’s failure to pay them overtime under the FLSA violated federal law. The court remanded the case to the United States District Court for a determination as to the amount of damages to which the 4,311 plaintiff-sergeants who signed up for the case are entitled to recover.

Damages will be calculated by determining the difference between what the Sergeants were paid and how much the City should have paid them under the provisions of the FLSA. Claims for damages relate to compensatory time waivers when members retire, work performed prior to or after their scheduled tour of duty, range days, unpaid time for phone calls received off hours on department phones, and the City’s failure to properly calculate the rate at which overtime is paid.

Importantly, only those current and former Sergeants, who signed up for the Mullins case, back in April 2004, will be potentially eligible to receive damages based on the decision in this case. The SBA believes all Sergeants are entitled to the protections of the FLSA. In an effort to have the same FLSA standards apply to the approximately 3000 Sergeants who did not join or were not eligible to participate in the original FLSA lawsuit to recover unpaid overtime compensation, President Mullins and the SBA Executive Board has instructed the FLSA attorneys at Woodley & McGillivary to commence a new lawsuit on behalf of the Sergeants who were not in the Mullins case.

Click here to check to see if you are a plaintiff in Mullins

Accordingly, if you are not a plaintiff in the 2004 Mullins case, and you have been a Sergeant anytime from September 1, 2008 to the present, you must sign up for the new case 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. It is a statutory requirement that you sign such a form to participate in an FLSA overtime case and to be eligible to receive damages. You can obtain a form from your SBA delegate or you can download a form from our website.

Click here to download consent/retainer form to participate in the new lawsuit.

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