VERNON — A panel of three judges from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a $530,000 verdict against Entergy Nuclear for withholding overtime pay from four security supervisors at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.
The federal appeals court earlier last week found that Entergy “willfully” violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when it failed to pay its security shift supervisors overtime.
The men now are owed about $530,000 in overtime, according to their lawyer, Josh Diamond of Diamond & Robinson, P.C. of Montpelier. He said the overtime represents a total of 5,500 hours of overtime that the four men accumulated over five years of work at Vermont Yankee.
The four men, Robert Miller of Vernon, David Banford of Harrisville, N.H., Gary Stratton of Hinsdale, N.H., and Scott McGratty of Keene, N.H., had sued Entergy after the Louisianabased energy company dismissed its security contractor Wackenhut in 2009, and stopped paying the security supervisors overtime. The men filed suit in 2012.
The federal appeals court panel upheld the Vermont jury verdict that Entergy was found guilty of “willfully” ignoring the Fair Labor Standards Act, which could increase the damages in the case.
Martin Cohn, Entergy Nuclear spokesman, said the company “respectfully disagreed” with the federal appeals court decision. He said the company was considering its legal options.
The Vermont Yankee employees aren’t the only security officers suing Entergy over the issue, as other lawsuits have been filed concerning workers at the Pilgrim Nuclear power plant in Massachusetts and the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan. Diamond, in a press release, noted that the decision was issued shortly after the U.S. Department of Labor issued new regulations to increase the salary requirements necessary for an employer to “avoid its obligation to pay overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act.”
Under the law, all employees are entitled to overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours a week, unless an employer can show that job duties fall under certain defined exceptions to the law, according to Diamond.
Cohn said he didn’t know if the men were still employed at Vermont Yankee, which has drastically cut its workforce since it shut down in December 2014.
However, the security force remains one of the largest group of employees still at the Vernon plant.
But Diamond said the four men continue to work security at Vermont Yankee;; however, for a different company since Entergy Nuclear has since decided to subcontract security to an independent company, Securitas.
He said after the jury verdict in Vermont, Entergy reclassified the four men’s job status and began paying them overtime.
Diamond said he is also representing security supervisors at another Entergy Nuclear plant in Arkansas. Diamond said the federal appeals panel did reverse one aspect of the Vermont trial verdict, which said despite a fluctuating work week, all four of the men are eligible for the overtime.