Perry v. City of New York, No. 21-2095 (2d Cir. 2023)
Annotate this Case
In this collective action, a group of 2,519 EMTs and paramedics allege that their employer, the City of New York, willfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by requiring them to perform work before and after their shifts without paying them for that work unless the plaintiffs specifically requested overtime compensation from the City. The district entered a $17.78 million judgment against the City. The City appealed, raising four arguments: (1) the jury’s liability verdict cannot stand because plaintiffs failed to request overtime pay for the work at issue; (2) the jury’s willfulness finding was not supported by the evidence; (3) due to an erroneous instruction, the jury failed to make a necessary factual finding regarding the calculation of damages; and (4) the district court incorrectly forbade the jury from considering whether one component of the plaintiffs’ post-shift work was de minimis and therefore noncompensable. The City accordingly asked that the court reverse the jury’s verdict or remand for a new trial on damages.
The Second Circuit affirmed. The court explained that here, each factor weighs against deeming plaintiffs’ post-shift work de minimis. First, post-shift work was very easy to record: CityTime already does, recording to the minute each post-shift sliver an EMT or paramedic spends at the station. Second, the court explained that the size of the claim favors plaintiffs. The City focuses exclusively on how much time the claimed work takes per day, but the proper inquiry is the amount of time claimed “in the aggregate.” Finally, plaintiffs’ post-shift work occurred regularly—the tasks had to be performed every day.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.