Fedweek

The court agreed with the government that the Anti-Deficiency Act barred it from spending money that had not been appropriated. Image: DCStockPhotography/Shutterstock.com

A federal appeals court has rejected class action suits seeking back pay for periods in which some federal employees were not paid during two partial government shutdowns.

In case No. 2018-1354, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said a lower court had erred in allowing cases to proceed regarding the month-long partial shutdown over December 2018-January 2019. Because of that ruling, the court rejected similar claims in a separate case, No. 2021-2255, involving the two-week partial shutdown in October 2013.

At issue was pay for employees who are “excepted” from unpaid furloughs during a partial shutdown—required to remain at work but unpaid for the meantime. Although they were later paid for that time—as were employees who were furloughed—the suits argued that the Fair Labor Standards Act required that they be paid even during a funding lapse.

Under the FLSA, an employer who does not timely pay minimum or overtime wages is liable for damages equal to the amount of the untimely paid wages. The Court of Federal Claims ruled that the plaintiffs could bring such claims under that law, but the cases then were set aside while the government appealed.

In its rulings, the Federal Circuit agreed with the government that the Anti-Deficiency Act, which bars spending of money that has not been appropriated, prevented those payments during a funding lapse—and that it had paid the employees as soon as practical once funding was restored.

“We hold that the FLSA’s timely payment obligation considers the circumstances of payment and that, as a matter of law, the government does not violate this obligation when it complies with the Anti-Deficiency Act by withholding payment during a lapse in appropriations,” the court said.

“The FLSA requires employers to pay their employees as soon as practicable under the circumstances. federal government wages during a lapse in appropriations is not practicable because the government would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act and could incur civil and criminal liability by making those expenditures. Therefore, the federal government timely pays wages, per the FLSA, when it pays its employees at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends,” it said.

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