Firefighter Overtime Discussing Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for Firefighters, First Responders as well as Human Resource & Finance Professional

A federal judge in South Carolina has dismissed an FLSA misclassification lawsuit filed by a former firefighter/medic without the need for a trail. United States District Court Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks granted Jasper County’s request to dismiss the 2021 lawsuit filed by Heather Davis, a former firefighter/medic for Jasper County’s Emergency Services Department. In the lawsuit, Davis alleged that the ...

The James Island Fire Department has approved a hefty pay increase for its firefighters in a newly adopted 2025 budget. This significant increase in starting firefighter pay follows a public information campaign begun by James Island’s firefighters over the past several months. The purpose of the campaign was to raise awareness and public support for the firefighters’ low wages. The ...

Today’s FLSA Question: I have noticed several recruiting announcements lately where municipalities and private corporations are offering new paramedics sign-on, retention, and even relocation bonuses. These bonuses can be significant. In fact, one agency is offering a $10,000 sign-on bonus, a $10,000 retention bonus (after completing 2 years) and another $5,000 as a relocation bonus. Do these bonuses need to ...

A Lancaster, Pennsylvania, firefighter has dropped an FLSA regular rate lawsuit pending a potential settlement. Geoff Stone, the president of the Lancaster Professional Firefighters, IAFF Local 319 filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and other firefighters in federal court in October, 2023. Chief among his allegations was that the city failed to include longevity pay in his [and other ...

A Maryland firefighter has filed an FLSA lawsuit on behalf of himself and other firefighters alleging their employer, the Berlin Fire Company, Inc., failed to pay overtime as required by the FLSA and Maryland law. The complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland contains allegations that the Berlin Fire Company misclassified the plaintiff ...

Local resistance to the planned reassignment of career firefighting personnel from combination (volunteer/career) stations to other short-staffed stations throughout Prince George’s County continues to mount following a lawsuit filed this week. The original story, which we covered last month on FirefighterOvertime.org involved plans to reassign more than fifty career firefighting personnel from combination stations to other short-staffed county stations during ...

Two similar FLSA lawsuits have been filed by firefighters from two different West Virginia cities in the past week. The first, which my friend and colleague Curt Varone covered on his Fire Law Blog last Wednesday, contained allegations that the City of Clarksburg was improperly calculating its firefighter’s regular rate of pay in violation of the FLSA. [You can find ...

A lieutenant from the Warren Township Fire Department, in Warren, Ohio has filed a lawsuit against his employer claiming the department’s pay practices violate several provisions of the FLSA.  Lieutenant Gregory Wrightsman filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and other “similarly situated” individuals [i.e., other firefighters that may eventually join in on the lawsuit] in the United States District ...

Prince George’s County Fire Chief Tiffany Green has announced a plan to reassign paid personnel from four of the county’s fire stations in an effort to reduce anticipated “critical staffing shortages” and “excessive mandatory callbacks and holdovers.” This reassignment comes on the heels of the firefighter’s unions voicing concerns related to its firefighter’s mental health and burnout due to excessive ...

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a class of more than 150 current and former LA County firefighters alleging that the county failed to pay recruit firefighters for all hours “worked” during the course of five separate recruit academies spanning an eight-month period in 2020. The firefighter’s claims centered around the county’s decision to offer a compressed ...