Allen v. City of Chicago

Magistrate Judge did not err in entering judgment in favor of defendant-employer after conducting bench trial in plaintiffs-employees/police officers’ action under Fair Labor Standards Act, alleging that defendant failed to pay them for overtime work performed off-duty on their mobile electronic devices. While record showed that defendant did not compensate plaintiffs for said work, defendant still prevailed since: (1) defendant had established system for plaintiffs to submit time slips for said work; and (2) defendant did not prevent plaintiffs from submitting said time slips and did not either actually or constructively know that plaintiffs were not being paid for such work. Ct. rejected plaintiffs’ contention that defendant had constructive knowledge of fact that they were not being paid for said work because it “could have known” about uncompensated work through examination of all of its records. Mere fact that defendant knew about some off-duty work being performed by plaintiffs on their mobile devices did not require different result.