Mercier v. United States, No. 14-5074 (Fed. Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseNurses employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs claimed entitlement to overtime pay under 38 U.S.C. 7453(e)(1), which requires the agency to compensate “officially ordered or approved” overtime work. The Claims Court dismissed because the nurses did not allege that the agency “expressly directed” their overtime. The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded. The statute does not require the official order or approval to be in any particular form, and the agency has not enacted any regulation interpreting the statute as mandating any particular procedure that must be followed to qualify for overtime pay. The words “officially ordered or approved” in section 453(e)(1) should have the same meaning as the same words which appear in the Federal Employee Pay Act, 5 U.S.C. 5542(a), which authorizes overtime pay generally for federal employees not covered by other specific statutes, The nurses allege the agency has “knowledge” that they work overtime “on a recurring and involuntary basis,” and that the agency ordered or approved such work through “expectation, requirement, and inducement.” Those allegations state a claim upon which relief may be granted under previous interpretation of the phrase “officially ordered or approved.”
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