I'm Having Trouble Getting Over This

The outcome of my court case is still stuck in my craw. I keep replaying it in my mind. How could it have gone differently?

Bottom line is the judge is/was not current in his knowledge of the labor laws. I wouldn't be surprised if he had never heard of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Or the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor. Or the Department of Labor's FairPay Overtime Initiative.

Yup. I probably wouldn't be surprised.

One thing he asked me during this horrible fiasco was if my former "employer" ever told me that he would pay me for overtime when we agreed on the pay. I said "No."

But then later I thought, none of the employers I've worked for had ever told me that they would pay me overtime.

For instance, when I originally got hired at the hospital it was on an as needed basis, however when I happen to work over 40 hours in a single week they automatically paid me overtime.

So I'm thinking, based on this judge's reasoning, a person who agreed to accept a job to work 40 hours per week would not be entitled to be paid for overtime if he happened to work 41 hours one week. Better still I could give him an hypothetical with his bailiff as the example. I could say something to the effect of, "Did you tell your bailiff when you hired him that you would pay him overtime? Well, do you pay him for overtime when he works over 40 hours in any given week?"

I have 10 days in order to file for an appeal of this judge's decision. I'll be filing my appeal on Monday, which is the 6th day.

I dutifully got back onto the Department of Labor's website and found a piece of information that will no doubt be of interest to this judge.

I'll show him!