Mario Jarmon v. Vinson Guard Services, Inc. , 488 F. App'x 454 ( 2012 )

Case: 11-13708 Date Filed: 08/30/2012 Page: 1 of 8
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 11-13708
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D.C. Docket No. 2:08-cv-02106-VEH
MARIO JARMON,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
VINSON GUARD SERVICES, INC.,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
________________________
(August 30, 2012)
Before JORDAN and HILL, Circuit Judges, and EDENFIELD,* District Judge.
PER CURIAM:
*
Honorable B. Avant Edenfield, United States District Judge for the Southern District of
Georgia, sitting by designation.
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Mario Jarmon sued his former employer, Vinson Guard Services, Inc., asserting
a claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201 et seq., as well as state
law claims for conversion and breach of contract.1 Mr. Jarmon alleged that Vinson
violated § 207 of the FLSA by willfully failing to pay him overtime wages throughout
his employment. The case proceeded to trial on the FLSA claim, but at the close of
Vinson’s case, the district court granted Mr. Jarmon’s motion for judgment as a
matter of law as to liability and instructed the jury to determine only the issue of
damages. The jury awarded Mr. Jarmon $1,110.00 in damages, a sum the district
court doubled pursuant to § 216(b) of the FLSA.
The issue is whether the district court erred in granting Mr. Jarmon’s motion
for judgment as a matter of law as to Vinson’s liability. Following oral argument, and
a review of the record and the relevant authorities, we conclude that the district court
improperly took the issue of Vinson’s liability away from the jury. Accordingly, we
reverse and remand the case for a new trial.
I
We review de novo a district court’s grant of judgment as a matter of law under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, applying the same legal standard as the district
1
The district court granted Vinson’s motion for summary judgment as to the conversion and
breach of contract claims, leaving only the FLSA claim.
2
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court. See Pickett v. Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., 420 F.3d 1272, 1278 (11th Cir. 2005).
Under Rule 50, a court should grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law when
there is no legally sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to find against that party on
that issue. See id. A court should deny such a motion, however, if there is a
substantial conflict in the evidence, “such that reasonable and fair-minded persons in
the exercise of impartial judgment might reach different conclusions[.]” Christopher
v. Florida, 449 F.3d 1360, 1364 (11th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted).
We review all the evidence in the record and draw all reasonable inferences in favor
of the nonmovant. See Cleveland v. Home Shopping Network, Inc., 369 F.3d 1189,
1192-93 (11th Cir. 2004). “‘Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence,
and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those
of a judge.’” Id. at 1193 (quoting Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods. Inc., 530 U.S.
133, 150 (2000)).
II
Because we write only for the parties, we assume their familiarity with the
underlying facts, and only summarize those necessary to resolve this case.
On March 9, 2008, Mr. Jarmon began working for Vinson as a field supervisor.
Mr. Jarmon remained in that position until October 22, 2008, when he was demoted
from field supervisor to security guard. On November 6, 2008, Mr. Jarmon stopped
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working for Vinson, and he subsequently filed suit.
III
In granting Mr. Jarmon’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, the district
court stated:
I’m going to grant the plaintiff’s motion for partial judgment as a matter
of law as to liability. I will send to the jury the issue of damages and the
issue of willfulness. . . . [N]o reasonable jury can find that there wasn’t
some overtime that was not paid . . . by the defendant to the plaintiff
during the time period, October 5 to 11, [2008].
D.E. 113 at 472-73. The district court later instructed the jury that it had determined
that Mr. Jarmon had proved that Vinson did not pay him the overtime wages required
by law.2 The district court also instructed the jury that Vinson had admitted to not
paying Mr. Jarmon for 7.5 hours of overtime he worked on October 7, 2008. See D.E.
113 at 551. In our view, the district court erred in granting Mr. Jarmon’s Rule 50
motion.
The FLSA provides that overtime wages must be determined by a given
workweek. See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a). Although Greg Carter, Vinson’s corporate
representative, admitted that Vinson did not pay Mr. Jarmon overtime wages for work
performed on October 7, 2008, see D.E. 112 at 369-71, that admission—as we explain
2
“I have determined that the plaintiff has proved that he worked overtime hours without
adequate compensation. It is up to you, however, to determine how much overtime the plaintiff
worked without adequate compensation.” D.E. 113 at 545.
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below—was insufficient to determine as a matter of law that Vinson violated the
FLSA.
The relevant time period is the workweek, not any given day, and Mr. Carter
testified that, even though Vinson did not pay Mr. Jarmon for October 7, it
nevertheless overpaid him for the week of October 5 to October 11. See D.E. 112 at
382-83; D.E. 113 at 396. For example, Mr. Carter—referring to Exhibit 13 at Vinson
0215, the payroll timekeeping sheet for the week of October 5-11, 2008—explained
that Mr. Jarmon worked a total of 47 hours from October 6 to October 11, but was
paid for 54 hours of work (40 straight time hours and 14 overtime hours). See D.E.
112 at 368 (Oct. 6), 369-71 (Oct. 7), 371-75 (Oct. 8), 375-78 (Oct. 9), 379-80 (Oct.
10), and 382 (Oct. 11). Thus, the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to
Vinson would have permitted the jury to find that Vinson overpaid Mr. Jarmon by 7
hours for the time period from October 6 to October 11.
That leaves October 5. With respect to that day, Vinson’s personnel schedule
indicated that Mr. Jarmon was not scheduled to work, see Exh. 13 at 1, and Mr. Carter
testified that he did not know how many hours Mr. Jarmon had worked that day, as
his time entries were incomplete. See D.E. 112 at 363-66; D.E. at 391. Mr. Jarmon,
for his part, testified that he worked 9 hours on October 5. See D.E. 112 at 252-55.
Thus, had the jury credited Vinson’s evidence for the period from October 6 to
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October 11, and credited Mr. Jarmon’s testimony for October 5, Mr. Jarmon would
have worked 56 hours while only being paid for 54.
The problem, for Rule 50 purposes, is that Mr. Jarmon’s credibility (in general,
and specifically with respect to October 5) was for the jury, particularly in light of the
fact that Mr. Jarmon previously had said that he did not know how much he was
underpaid by Vinson. See D.E. 112 at 277-82. Credibility determinations and the
weighing of evidence are jury functions, see Cleveland, 369 F.3d at 1193, and the
jury should have been allowed to decide whether it believed Mr. Jarmon’s version of
events. See Etienne v. Inter-County Sec. Corp., 173 F.3d 1372, 1374 (11th Cir. 1999)
(“The evidence was essentially a credibility determination, with the exception of the
$18.62 the defendant admitted to owing, and the credibility of the witnesses was the
province of the jury.”).3 Nothing in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co., 328 U.S.
680 (1946) or its progeny requires a jury to accept a plaintiff’s version of events when
an employer has kept inadequate records. See Kuebel v. Black & Decker, Inc., 643
F.3d 352, 364-65 (2d Cir. 2011) (“The [Mt. Clemens] test simply addresses whether
there is a reasonable basis for calculating damages, assuming that a violation has been
3
In Etienne we concluded that the district court erred in denying a motion for judgment as
a matter of law as to the $18.62 the defendant admitted to owing because of an error by the payroll
company. Vinson, in contrast, has not admitted that it owes Mr. Jarmon any money. Rather, Vinson
has submitted evidence indicating that although Mr. Vinson was not paid wages for a certain day,
he is not owed any further wages because he was still overpaid for the workweek.
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shown.”). Rather, the burden merely shifts to the employer to come forward with
evidence to negate the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the
employee’s evidence. As explained above, Vinson did enough to get to a jury.
Stated differently, although Mr. Jarmon received the benefit of a jury
instruction in accordance with Mt. Clemens, that did not mean that he was entitled to
judgment as a matter of law as to Vinson’s liability. In Mt. Clemens, the Supreme
Court held that where the employer’s records are inaccurate or inadequate, the
employee has the burden to prove by way of just and reasonable inference that he in
fact performed work for which he was improperly compensated. See id. at 687. Once
the employee has met his burden, the burden then shifts to the employer to come
forward with evidence of the precise amount of work performed or with evidence to
negate the reasonableness of the inference to be drawn from the employee’s evidence.
See id. at 687-88. As we have said, Vinson presented the testimony of Mr. Carter, its
corporate representative, that Mr. Jarmon was not underpaid for the week of October
5-11, 2008. As a result, Vinson presented sufficient evidence to negate the
reasonableness of Mr. Jarmon’s testimony and create a jury question on liability.
In sum, the district court erred in granting Mr. Jarmon’s motion for judgment
as a matter of law on liability, and Mr. Jarmon’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs.
IV
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The district court’s judgment as a matter of law on liability is reversed, as is the
district court’s award of attorney’s fees and costs to Mr. Jarmon. The case is
remanded for a new trial. In light of this disposition, we need not and do not address
any of the other issues raised by Vinson.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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