The Supreme Court Monday let stand a ruling denying more than 14,000 federal law enforcement officers four years in back overtime pay.
Without comment, the court turned away the officers' request for millions of dollars in back pay. The 14,122 law enforcement officers worked between 1984 and 1995 at agencies including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In 1992, the Court of Federal Claims found the officers had been mistakenly classified as exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, and were entitled to overtime pay. In a 1994 settlement, the officers were granted two years of back overtime pay.
The officers then filed administrative claims with the General Accounting Office for an additional four years of back overtime pay.
In 1994, GAO ruled that federal employees could only claim two years of back pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Later that year, Congress enacted a provision increasing the limit on back-pay claims to six years. But in 1995, Congress reversed itself and re-established the two-year limitation.
In between the congressional flip-flop, the officers asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to uphold their claim on the four years of back pay. The district court, and later the appeals court, rejected the claim. The Supreme Court's action affirms the lower courts' decisions.
The appeals court decision, however, ordered the district court to review whether the officers can seek their claims with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The case is Adams v. Hinchman, 98-1265.