In December, a federal appeals court issued a ruling stating that the time team drivers spend in the sleeper berth beyond eight hours is eligible for compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The case involved CRST Expedited and CRST International, both extensively utilizing the team-driving model. The First Circuit Court of Appeals deliberated on whether time spent in the sleeper berth should be considered “on-duty” according to Department of Labor regulations.
If it was deemed as “on-duty” time, the court was asked if CRST should pay “a driver who is on duty for 24 hours or more for the time that driver spends in the sleeper berth in excess of eight hours within a full 24-hour period.”
The legal dispute arose when Juan Carlos Montoya and other former CRST trainee drivers filed a lawsuit in January 2016, alleging that the company’s compensation policies violated the Fair Labor Standards Act. CRST has not provided any comments on the case as of now.
According to court documents, CRST’s team-based driver training program is deemed “uncommon,” being one of the few fleets that train drivers in team operations.
“CRST’s approach allows the company to keep their trucks in near continuous motion, for multiple days, while complying with DOT regulations limiting the hours a driver can spend behind the wheel,” the ruling said.
The court highlighted various activities performed in the sleeper berth, including preparing food, browsing the internet, reading, watching TV and movies, and sleeping; they followed by noting that “drivers are at liberty to pursue their own activities within the confines of the space and facilities provided to them.”
While Department of Transportation regulations govern the duration of a driver’s work and required off-duty periods, compensation falls under separate regulations issued by the Department of Labor. The court emphasized that Department of Labor regulations permit employers to exclude a sleeping period of up to eight hours per day when calculating compensation.
“CRST calculates the pay owed to team drivers according to the total number of miles dispatched to the team for the shipment,” the court said. “Each member of the driving team is paid one-half of the total number of miles attributed to the shipment at a rate of pay that corresponds with the driver’s level of experience, with less experienced drivers receiving a lower rate of pay per mile. Thus, the hourly wage of the drivers can be calculated by dividing their received pay by the total number of hours worked during the pay period.”
Additionally, the court noted that the company “does not count time spent in the sleeper berth as hours worked and so does not include the sleeper berth hours in the calculation of the drivers’ hourly wage. If the sleeper berth time is counted as hours worked, however, CRST’s drivers receive an hourly wage that falls short of the minimum wage under the FLSA.”
Montoya and the other drivers claim that CRST failed to compensate them for hours spent in the sleeper berth beyond the Department of Labor’s eight-hour exclusion, resulting in wages falling below the hourly minimum wage mandated by the Fair Labor Standards Act. A prior ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts favored the drivers, determining that sleeper berth time exceeding eight hours is compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act. CRST has appealed this decision.
Source: Commercial Carrier Journal
