|
Personal Liability Applies When A
Corporation Fails To Pay Wages Due Under The FLSA
493 F.3d 26 (1st
Cir. 2007)
United States
Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ELAINE L. CHAO, Secretary of Labor,
United States Department of Labor,
Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
HOTEL OASIS, INC., d/b/a PARADOR OASIS;
LIONEL LUGO-RODRÍGUEZ, Individually and as President
of Hotel Oasis, Inc.,
Defendants, Appellants.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Daniel R. Domínguez, U.S. District Judge]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before
Torruella, Circuit Judge,
Selya and Cyr, Senior Circuit Judges.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mauricio
Hernández-Arroyo, for appellants.
Mary J.
Rieser, Attorney, U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor, Fair
Labor Standards Division, with whom Jonathan L. Snare, Acting Solicitor
of Labor, Steven J. Mandel, Associate Solicitor, and Paul L. Frieden,
Counsel for Appellate Litigation, were on brief, for appellee.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 28, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. This case arises from an investigation
of defendant-appellant Hotel Oasis, Inc. ("Oasis") by the Wage
and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. The district court
found multiple minimum wage and overtime violations, and entered judgment
against Oasis and its president. The employers appeal the district
court's judgment, alleging error in the court's failure to set aside a
stipulation entered prior to trial, its conclusion that Oasis's president
is personally liable as an employer, and its discretionary decision to
award liquidated damages. We affirm on all grounds.
I. Background
Oasis operates a hotel and
restaurant facility in southwestern Puerto Rico.
Defendant-appellant Dr. Lionel Lugo-Rodríguez ("Lugo") is the president of the
corporation, runs the hotel, and manages its employees. Oasis's records
and employee testimony show that between October 3, 1990 and June 30,
1993, Oasis had been investigated twice before, and violations of minimum
wage and overtime laws had been found on both occasions. Oasis agreed
both times to pay the back wages and comply in the future.
Employees were paid less than
minimum wage, were not paid for training time or meetings held during
non-working hours, were paid in cash "off the books," and were
not paid appropriately for overtime. Oasis also maintained two sets of
payroll records for the same employees, covering the same time periods,
one showing fewer hours at a higher rate, and the other showing more
hours at a sub-minimum wage rate. Oasis contends that two sets of books
were necessary, one for temporary employees and one for permanent
employees.
On
April 5, 1994, the Secretary of Labor (the "Secretary") filed a
complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto
Rico against Oasis and Lugo (collectively, "Defendants"),
alleging violations of the minimum wage, overtime, and record keeping
provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C.
§§ 215-216. The Secretary also sought liquidated damages pursuant to §
216(c), and a permanent injunction pursuant to § 217, enjoining Oasis from
further violations of the FLSA. In their answer to the complaint,
Defendants raised an affirmative defense that the FLSA did not apply to
Oasis because Oasis's "annual dollar value" ("ADV")
was less than $500,000. See 29 U.S.C. § 203(s)(1)(a).
On
February 9, 1996, during a pre-trial conference, Jorge Sala, then-counsel
for Oasis, stipulated that Oasis had an ADV of at least $500,000 per year
from April 1, 1991 to October 1, 1995 (the "Sala Stipulation").
The minutes for that conference stated that Defendants "with draw
the ADV defense." The minutes were amended on April 22, 1996, to
reflect that Defendants "waive[d] the ADV defense though the third
quarter of 1995."
In
exchange, the Secretary agreed that Oasis was in compliance with the FLSA
thereafter. Defendants point out that discovery had not been concluded at
the time Sala entered the stipulation, and that Defendants had refused to
execute a similar stipulation mailed to them ten weeks earlier by counsel
for the Secretary. On July 18, 1996, Sala filed a motion to withdraw as
counsel, and Defendants hired a new attorney.
During
a September 6, 1996 telephone status conference, Defendants attempted to
renew their ADV defense, apparently claiming that Sala did not have the
authority to enter into the stipulation. Defendants' reasoning is gleaned
from a May 15, 2002 order in which the district court indicated that
prior to June 1997, Defendants had relied solely on Sala's lack of
authorization as grounds for setting aside the stipulation.
On
September 16, 1996, the district court issued an order reaffirming the
Sala Stipulation and stating that the stipulation would not be set aside
absent "the most extraordinary extenuating and grievous
circumstances."
At a
June 1997 pre-trial conference, Defendants asserted for the first time
that the Sala Stipulation was based on a computational mistake. The
district court once again upheld the stipulation, ruling that the
Secretary could rely on the stipulation to meet its burden to prove FLSA
coverage, but that Defendants would be allowed to adduce evidence at
trial to prove that Oasis's ADV was less than $500,000 for the relevant
periods.
A bench
trial began on June 23, 1997. After five successive days, the trial was
continued for over two years, resuming on February 7, 2000. On July 13,
1998, more than a year after the trial commenced, Defendants submitted a
motion for summary judgment, which included expert affidavits concluding
that Oasis did not meet the ADV threshold. The district court refused to
entertain the motion for summary judgment because it was submitted well
after the trial began. In addition, the court precluded Defendants from
introducing the accompanying expert testimony at trial because
"[n]either the expert nor the report [was] identified and disd to
Plaintiff before the trial commenced."
At
trial in February 2000, Defendants attempted to introduce Rule 1006
summaries,
Federal Rule of Evidence 1006 provides in full:
"The contents of voluminous writings, recordings, or photographs
which cannot conveniently be examined in court may be presented in the
form of a chart, summary, or calculation. The originals, or duplicates,
shall be made available for examination or copying, or both, by other parties
at reasonable time and place. The court may order that they be produced
in court." which purported to show that Oasis's ADV was less than
$500,000 for some of the periods covered by the Sala Stipulation. The
Secretary's counsel objected on several grounds over the course of the
trial, including that the summaries were inadmissible because they were
based on hearsay, and that he had not been provided the summaries before
trial and therefore could not concede their numerical accuracy. For these
reasons, the district court refused to admit the summaries at that point.
Instead, after testimony was concluded on all subjects other than the
ADV, the court adjourned the trial, giving Defendants thirty days to
comply with Rule 1006 and the Secretary another sixty days to review the
data and develop her position.
The
trial was continued several times thereafter. On October 19, 2000, the
Secretary filed a memorandum in support of her motion to preclude
Defendants from presenting evidence contrary to the Sala Stipulation.
Defendants never formally opposed the motion, and on May 15, 2002, the
district court granted the motion. The court explained that it had given
Defendants "an opportunity to demonstrate that the Sala Stipulation
was wrong," but that "the record is bereft of any solid
argument developed by Oasis which may point to 'extraordinary extenuating
or grievous circumstance[s]' which might justify setting the Sala
Stipulation aside." With no evidence of "a clear manifest
injustice," the court held Defendants to the stipulation based on
the long-standing principle that a party is bound by its attorney's
actions.
On June
28, 2002, having reaffirmed the Sala Stipulation, the district court
nevertheless offered Defendants an alternative way to submit the Rule
1006 summaries in lieu of an evidentiary hearing: "[the parties]
shall file a joint proffer of evidence or offer of proof, to preclude the
necessity of the hearing; it shall be akin to a book of evidence that is
offered, albeit not admitted." Although the court's May 15, 2002
order holding Defendants to the Sala Stipulation was final, the court
felt that the proffered evidence would give the Court of Appeals a
complete record on which to decide the ADV issue on the merits.
A year
later, on June 20, 2003, the district court entered an order granting the
Secretary's unopposed motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of
Lugo's
personal liability as an employer under the FLSA. The motion had been
granted during a pre-trial conference on June 11, 1997, after hearing the
parties' positions on the issue. The parties were aware of the court's
decision but the order had not been entered into the docket. The issue of
Lugo's
liability was rehashed on several occasions throughout the course of
litigation, as noted in the court's November 11, 2005 Amended Opinion and
Order, denying Defendants' final motion for reconsideration.
In
addition, the order again addressed the Sala Stipulation and the Rule 1006
summaries. Although neither party had complied with the court's
alternative method of submitting the Rule 1006 evidence, the court
granted them another twenty days to file their offers of proof on the ADV
issue. The court also reminded Defendants that "[t]he Sala
Stipulation was bilateral and had a 'quid pro quo' for the employer,
because the Department of Labor, as part of the announced stipulation,
agreed that Defendants had been in compliance since October[] 1995."
Defendants finally submitted the Rule 1006 summaries on July 17, 2003,
and various memoranda and supplemental filings by both parties followed.
After
further hearings, the district court entered judgment in favor of the
Secretary on October 31, 2003. The accompanying Opinion & Order
denied a number of "Rule 50 Motions" filed by Defendants over
the course of the proceedings, the most relevant to this appeal being a
motion not normally thought of as within the compass of Rule 50 -- a
motion to reconsider the court's denial of Defendants' July 13, 1998
motion for summary judgment on the ADV issue. The opinion also once again
explained the history of both the Sala Stipulation and the issue of Lugo's personal
liability as an employer. The court noted that its grant of partial
summary judgment on Lugo's status was
further supported by Defendants' admissions at trial that "Lugo had ultimate
control over [Oasis]'s operations, and over employment practices."
On June
21, 2005, the court amended the judgment, ordering Oasis to pay $141,270.64
in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to 282 current
and former employees. Oasis filed one last motion for reconsideration on
July 1, 2005, asking the court to reconsider its decisions on liquidated
damages and Lugo's
personal liability as an employer. The district court issued an amended
opinion and order on November 1, 2005, denying the motion for
reconsideration on the ground that Defendants were merely rehashing old
arguments. Defendants appeal from the final judgment and from the court's
denial of their last motion for reconsideration.
II. Discussion
Defendants raise three issues on appeal. First, they claim that
the district court should have set aside the Sala Stipulation and allowed
them to prove the ADV defense at trial. Second, they challenge the
district court's finding that Lugo
is personally liable as an employer under the FLSA. Third, they argue
that the district court erred in awarding liquidated damages based on
willfulness. We address each issue in turn.
A. Sala Stipulation
The
district court refused to set aside the Sala Stipulation based on the
general principle that "stipulations of attorneys made during a
trial may not be disregarded or set aside at will." T I Fed. Credit
Union v. DelBonis, 72 F.3d 921, 928 (1st Cir. 1995) (quoting Marshall v. Emersons
Ltd., 593 F.2d 565, 569 (4th Cir. 1979)); see also Rosario-Díaz v.
González, 140 F.3d 312, 315 (1st Cir. 1998) ("Attorneys represent
clients, and as a general rule an attorney's blunder binds her
client."). As the district court correctly noted, stipulations are
highly favored in our judicial system as a means of "expedit[ing] a
trial and eliminat[ing] the necessity of much tedious proof." T I
Fed. Credit Union, 72 F.3d at 928 (quoting Burstein v. United States, 232 F.2d 19,
23 (8th Cir. 1956)). Once entered, parties are "not generally free
to extricate themselves . . . [unless] 'it becomes apparent that it may
inflict a manifest injustice upon one of the contracting parties.'" Id. (quoting Marshall,
593 F.2d at 568). Accordingly, "a party may be relieved of a
stipulation for good cause -- which means, in a nutshell, that good
reason must exist and that relief must not unfairly prejudice the
opposing party or the interests of justice." Am. Honda Motor Co. v.
Richard Lundgren, Inc., 314 F.3d 17, 21 (1st Cir. 2002). One "good
reason" for setting aside a stipulation is "where it becomes
evident that 'the agreement was made under a clear mistake.'" T I
Fed. Credit Union, 72 F.3d at 928 (quoting Brast v. Winding Gulf Colliery
Co., 94 F.2d 179, 181 (4th Cir. 1938) (setting aside a stipulation as to
tax liability where the calculation had been based on a misunderstanding
of law)).
Here,
the district court gave Defendants an opportunity to prove that the
stipulation was based on a mistake, but Defendants failed to make the
required showing.
Defendants argued that the district court misplaced
the burden of proof on the ADV issue, by requiring Defendants to prove a
lack of coverage. Defendants, however, stipulated that Oasis's ADV met
the statutory threshold, and the district court affirmed the stipulation,
which relieved the Secretary of her burden to prove FLSA coverage. See,
e.g., Eng'g Contractors Ass'n of S. Fla.,
Inc. v. Metro. Dade
County, 122 F.3d
895, 905 (11th Cir. 1997) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(c)(3)). The burden
was then properly on Defendants to show good cause for setting aside the
stipulation. See Cabán Hernández v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., -- F.3d --,
No. 06-1968, 2007 WL 1248414, at *3 (1st Cir. 2007) ("The appellants
have shown nothing that would constitute good cause or otherwise justify
relief from the stipulation.").
Defendants do
not challenge the district court's rulings with respect to the
inadmissibility of the Rule 1006 summaries Defendants complain that they
did not get a hearing on the Rule1006 evidence, as promised by the court.
Defendants did not, however, oppose the Secretary's motion to preclude
them from offering any evidence contrary to the stipulation, which rendered
the Rule 1006 evidence unnecessary. Moreover, Defendants then agreed to
file a joint proffer of evidence in lieu of a hearing or the expert evidence presented with
their ill-timed summary judgment motion. We have scoured the record, and,
like the district court, we find no indication of any properly supported
arguments that Oasis did not meet the ADV threshold.
Alternatively, Defendants argue that the Sala Stipulation is
procedurally invalid because it was not in writing or signed by the parties.
They assert that stipulations between attorneys are not binding unless
the represented parties assent to the stipulation, and that stipulations
usually must be in writing unless made in open court. Defendants also
posit that stipulations must be signed by all parties when required by
local rules, citing Cavallini v. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co., 44
F.3d 256, 266 (5th Cir. 1995) (applying Tex. R. Civ. P. 11). The District
Court for the District of Puerto Rico, however, has no specific rule requiring
all agreements between parties to be in writing. Note, however, that Local Rule 16(j)(2)
does specifically require stipulations extending discovery deadlines to
be in writing. The st rule otherwise on point is Local Rule 11,which
requires that all documents submitted to the court be signed by an
attorney or pro se litigant.
In any
event, the district court memorialized the Sala Stipulation -- entered
into by the attorneys at a pre-trial status conference before the
district court judge -- in a September 16, 1996 order. Defendants did not
object to the order, move to strike the reference to the stipulation, or
request reconsideration. The order then became the law of the case, and
any formalities suggested by Defendants with respect to the stipulation
were rendered moot. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(e) ("After any conference
held pursuant to this rule, an order shall be entered reciting the action
taken. This order shall control the subsequent course of the action
unless modified by a subsequent order.").
Finally, Defendants attack the subject matter jurisdiction of the
court, arguing that the parties cannot stipulate to ADV coverage because
it is a jurisdictional requirement of the FLSA. See Aponte v. Tabares,
114 F.3d 1169, 1997 WL 235473, at *1 (1st Cir. 1997) (unpublished
opinion) ("Limits on subject matter jurisdiction are not waivable
and, therefore, may be raised at any time."). This argument fails,
however, because ADV coverage is not jurisdictional. As the Supreme Court
recently noted, "Subject matter jurisdiction in federal-question
cases is sometimes erroneously conflated with a plaintiff's need and
ability to prove the defendant bound by the federal law asserted as the
predicate for relief -- a merits-related determination." Arbaugh v.
Y & H Corp., 546 U.S.
500, 511 (2006) (quoting 2 James Wm. Moore et al., Moore's Federal Practice § 12.30[1] (3d
ed. 2005)). To mitigate this confusion, the Court provided clear guidance
for distinguishing between the two concepts: "[W]hen Congress does
not rank a statutory limitation on coverage as jurisdictional, courts
should treat the restriction as nonjurisdictional in character." Id. at 515. The
FLSA places the ADV limitation in the definitions section of the Act, and
does not suggest that the ADV limitation is jurisdictional. See 29 U.S.C.
§§ 203(s)(1)(a), 216. We therefore treat it as an element of the claim.
Cf. Fernández v. Centerplate/NBSE, 441 F.3d 1006, 1009 (D.C. Cir. 2006)
("While the merits of Fernandez's FLSA claim turn on whether she was
paid for hours worked in excess of forty per week, nothing in the FLSA
suggests that a failure to prove this particular element of her cause of
action requires a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction."); Minard v.
ITC Deltacom Commc'ns, Inc., 447 F.3d 352, 356 (5th Cir. 2006) ("In
light of the Supreme Court's decision in Arbaugh, we conclude that the
definition section of the [Family Medical Leave Act] . . . is a
substantive ingredient of a plaintiff's claim for relief, not a
jurisdictional limitation.").
As
Defendants have not established good cause for setting aside the Sala
Stipulation, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court's
decision to hold Defendants to their agreement.
B. Employer Liability
Defendants
next challenge the district court's grant of partial summary judgment on
the issue of Lugo's
personal liability as an employer, arguing that the FLSA does not
contemplate holding corporate officers individually liable for the
corporation's statutory violations. We review a district court's grant of
summary judgment de novo, viewing the summary judgment record in the
light most favorable to the non-moving party. Vasapolli v. Rostoff, 39
F.3d 27, 32 (1st Cir. 1994).
Under
the FLSA, an "employer" is "any person acting directly or
indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an
employee." 29 U.S.C. § 203(d). The First Circuit has followed the
Supreme Court's lead in interpreting this definition pursuant to an "economic
reality" analysis. Donovan v. Agnew, 712 F.2d 1509, 1510 (1st Cir.
1983) (citing Goldberg v. Whitaker, 366 U.S. 28, 33 (1961)).
Accordingly, there may be multiple "employers" who are
simultaneously liable for compliance with the FLSA. Id.; Baystate Alternative Staffing,
Inc. v. Herman, 163 F.3d 668, 675 (1st Cir. 1998).
In
Donovan v. Agnew, we acknowledged that "[t]he overwhelming weight of
authority is that a corporate officer with operational control of a
corporation's covered enterprise is an employer along with the
corporation, jointly and severally liable under the FLSA for unpaid
wages." 712 F.2d at 1511 (collecting cases). Although we found it
"difficult to accept . . . that Congress intended that any corporate
officer or other employee with ultimate operational control over payroll
matters be personally liable," id. at 1513 (emphasis added), we
narrowly determined that the FLSA did not preclude personal liability for
"corporate officers with a significant ownership interest who had
operational control of significant aspects of the corporation's day to
day functions, including compensation of employees, and who personally
made decisions to continue operations despite financial adversity during
the period of nonpayment," id. at 1514.
We next
visited the issue of an individual's personal liability under the FLSA
for corporate employment practices in Baystate Alternative Staffing, 163
F.3d 668. There, the Department of Labor's Administrative Review Board
had held two corporate officers and managers personally liable for FLSA
violations because "they had the authority to manage certain aspects
of the business's operations on a day-to-day basis." Id. at 678. Noting
our concern in Agnew that not every corporate employee who exercised
supervisory control should be held personally liable, we identified
several factors that were important to the personal liability analysis,
including the individual's ownership interest, degree of control over the
corporation's financial affairs and compensation practices, and role in
"caus[ing] the corporation to compensate (or not to compensate)
employees in accordance with the FLSA." Id. We remanded the personal liability
issue in that case based on the Board's failure to address "the
[individuals'] personal responsibility for making decisions about the
conduct of the business that contributed to the violations of the
Act." Id.
Based
on the above considerations, we affirm the district court's judgment
holding Lugo
personally liable for Oasis's compensation decisions. Lugo was not just any employee with
some supervisory control over other employees. He was the president of
the corporation, and he had ultimate control over the business's
day-to-day operations. In particular, it is undisputed that Lugo was the corporate
officer principally in charge of directing employment practices, such as
hiring and firing employees, requiring employees to attend meetings
unpaid, and setting employees' wages and schedules. He was thus
instrumental in "causing" the corporation to violate the FLSA.
See id.; see also Donovan v. Sabine Irrigation Co., 695 F.2d 190, 194-95
(5th Cir. 1983) (holding corporate president who dominated employment
practices liable under FLSA). The FLSA contemplates, at least in certain
circumstances, holding officers with such personal responsibility for
statutory compliance jointly and severally liable along with the
corporation.
Neither party discusses Lugo's ownership interest in Oasis. In
this case, however, Lugo's
personal responsibility outweighs any ownership considerations. See
Agnew, 712 F.2d at 1511 (citing Sabine Irrigation Co., 695 F.2d at
194-95, for the proposition thata corporate officer may be held liable
even if he has no ownership interest).
See Agnew, 712
F.2d at 1510.
C. Liquidated Damages
Finally, Defendants argue that the district court erred in
awarding liquidated damages based on a finding of willfulness. The FLSA
authorizes the Secretary of Labor to recover on behalf of employees
unpaid wages and overtime compensation plus an equal amount in liquidated
damages. 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), (c). The only way an employer can escape
liquidated damages is to "show[] to the satisfaction of the
court" that it acted in good faith and had reasonable grounds for
believing that its acts did not violate the FLSA. Id. § 260. Because the FLSA leaves the
decision to depart from the norm of awarding double damages to the
district court, see, e.g., Herman v. RSR Sec. Servs. Ltd., 172 F.3d 132,
142 (2d Cir. 1999), we review only for abuse of discretion, McLaughlin v.
Hogar San José, Inc., 865 F.2d 12, 14 (1st Cir. 1989). The employer's
burden on appeal is especially difficult because we review the district
court's factual findings related to good faith and reasonableness for
clear error. See id. ("The district court's findings of good faith
and reasonable grounds are mixed questions of law and fact, which are
subject to the strict standard of review of Rule 52(a).").
Here,
the district court found that Defendants failed to show good faith or objective
reasonableness, referring back to its findings on willfulness with
respect to the applicable statute of limitations. See Reich v. Newspapers
of New Eng., Inc., 44 F.3d 1060, 1079 (1st Cir. 1995) ("The FLSA
imposes a two-year statute of limitations unless the violations are shown
to be willful, in which case a three-year period applies." (citing
29 U.S.C. § 255(a))). For statute of limitation purposes, the court
found, inter alia, that Defendants "intentionally and consistently
failed to keep accurate records of the time worked by its employees[,] .
. . disguised minimum wage, as well as overtime pay violations, . . . did
not record the amounts of cash tips[,] . . . [and] most salient . . .
[to] a finding of willfulness, . . . [paid] employee 'off the
books.'"
The
district court's willfulness findings are not clearly erroneous, and they
adequately support the court's decision to award liquidated damages.
Oasis's failure to keep adequate payroll records and its intentional
manipulation of the records it did keep are sufficient grounds for
concluding that Oasis did not act in good faith or with a reasonable
belief that it was in compliance with the FLSA. Cf. Elwell v. Univ.
Hosps. Home Care Servs., 276 F.3d 832, 844 (6th Cir. 2002) ("[T]he
fact that an employer knowingly under-reported its employee's work hours
could suggest to a [fact finder] that the employer was attempting to
conceal its failure to pay overtime from regulators, or was acting to
eliminate evidence that might later be used against it in a suit by one
of its employees."). Moreover, a finding of willfulness means that
"the employer either knew or showed reckless disregard for the
matter of whether its conduct was prohibited by the statute."
McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U.S. 128, 133 (1988).
Defendants' primary argument on appeal is that the court had
indicated at trial that the willfulness issue was "" and that
the Secretary had offered no evidence that Oasis acted in reckless
disregard of its statutory obligations. Cf. López v. Corporación
Azucarera de P.R., 938 F.2d 1510, 1515 (1st Cir. 1991) ("Plaintiffs
herein have proffered no evidence indicating that [the employer] acted
with knowledge or reckless disregard with respect to its obligations
under FLSA. . . . Therefore, in the first instance, the court holds that
the two-year limitation term is applicable to this case."). These
arguments are unpersuasive. First, the district court noted its
"initial inclination against a determination of willfulness,"
but explained that it ultimately relied on the employees' testimony and
Defendants' own documentary evidence to reach its conclusion regarding
willfulness. We have already determined that the willfulness finding is
not clearly erroneous.
Some circuits have held that a finding of willfulness
precludes a district court's decision not to award liquidated damages,
see e.g., Brinkman v. Dep't of Corr., 21 F.3d 370, 372-73 (10th
Cir.1994), but we need not go so far, see Jarrett v. ERC Props., Inc.,211
F.3d 1078, 1084 (8th Cir. 2000).
Furthermore, it is the employer's burden to show good faith and
objective reasonableness, see 29 U.S.C. § 260, and therefore the
Secretary's alleged failure to offer evidence of willfulness is not an impediment
to the court's decision to refrain from awarding liquidated damages. The
district court found that Defendants failed to meet their burden, and,
again, that finding is not clearly erroneous. We therefore find no abuse
of discretion in the district court's award of liquidated damages.
III. Conclusion
For the
foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment against Defendants.
Affirmed.
.
|