In one of the largest back pay cases ever filed against the government, a group of Justice department attorneys has lost a request for overtime, holiday pay and “administratively uncontrollable” overtime dating to the period 1992-1999.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s ruling was the latest in a series of decisions in the case, involving more than 9,100 attorneys and an estimated $500 million or more. The ruling upheld a lower court, which found that under terms of the overtime law, the extra time has to be formally assigned to be payable and that the extra time worked by the group of plaintiffs wasn’t–even though the department was well aware of the hours they were working and there was an expectation of working beyond the standard 80 hours biweekly.
The loss apparently means that the U.S. Supreme Court is the last hope for the plaintiffs to gain back pay for the period (since 2000, the Justice Department has been barred by legislative language from paying overtime to its attorneys).
The decision is available at: http://www.fedcir.gov/opinions/05-5104.pdf
