Renfro v. Indiana Michigan Power Co.

KATHLEEN M. O’MALLEY, District Judge,

dissenting.

I respectfully dissent. The underlying litigation actually involves three classes of plaintiffs employed by AEP at the Cook power plant: technical writers, planners, and nuclear specialists. Guided by this Court’s prior decisions on this precise issue, the district court did a very careful job of analyzing and differentiating between the three job classifications-each of which AEP considered to be exempt from the FLSA’s overtime provisions. In determining that, for purposes of the cross-motions involved in this appeal, the technical writers were non-exempt employees, Senior Judge Wendell A. Miles had a thorough and well-developed record before him detailing the day-to-day job duties involved in all three positions. He also had a specialized familiarity with the parties, their counsel, and the issues involved in this case, having been assigned to similar FLSA litigation involving AEP and other employees at its nuclear power plants. While Judge Miles ultimately concluded the technical writers were entitled to overtime wages, he carefully drew distinctions between the writers and the two classifications of employees he concluded were not entitled to overtime wages-i.e., the planners and nuclear specialists. Given the district court judge’s detailed familiarity with the respective job duties, the full record that was developed, and the careful procedure the court employed, I would defer to the district court’s determination.