The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals recently found no liability for a company that kept accurate time records in the face of a former employee who claimed that he was not paid for overtime hours that he worked at home. In Brown v. Scriptpro, the employer, Kansas-based company ScriptPro LLC, had an automated timekeeping system in place that could be accessed remotely. Although the former employee, Frank Brown, provided testimony from his wife that he did work from home, he admittedly did not log the hours into the timekeeping system. The court explained that “[u]nder these circumstances, where the employee fails to notify the employer through the established overtime record-keeping system, the failure to pay overtime is not a Fair Labor Standards Act violation.”
The federal regulations to the Fair Labor Standards Act require employers to keep accurate time records. Those same records are essential to an employer’s defense of “off the clock” overtime claims. Brown highlights the need for employers to heed the federal regulations by having an accurate recordkeeping system in place and clearly communicating and enforcing policies regarding the recording of work time. While the Tenth Circuit only has jurisdiction over district courts in Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming, the case may be persuasive to federal courts in Florida and across the country.