Cleveland County, North Carolina, told the Fourth Circuit on Monday that a federal trial court correctly found it owed no damages to emergency medical services workers over their pay structure, but wrongly concluded that the county violated federal wage law in the first place.
In a response brief and cross-appeal, the county argued that the district court misunderstood how its compensation system accounted for both straight-time pay and mandatory overtime for EMS employees working 24-hour shifts.
The dispute centers on lead plaintiff Sara B. Conner, an emergency medical technician who challenged the county’s so-called Section 14 pay plan under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Conner has argued that the system resulted in underpayment and violated county ordinances governing employee compensation.
Cleveland County countered that Conner’s employment contract explicitly contemplated 2,928 annual work hours, including 848 hours of built-in overtime, and that her salary was designed to cover all expected hours worked.
“Conner’s position relies on the incorrect assumption that salary and straight-time pay are the same thing,” the county told the appeals court. “They are not.”
Conner appealed in October after the district court ruled that although Cleveland County’s pay practices technically violated the FLSA, the workers were not entitled to damages because any shortfalls in certain pay periods were offset by overpayments in others.
Under the Section 14 plan, the county calculates an employee’s base hourly rate by dividing the annual salary by 2,928 hours, reflecting the actual hours worked under a 24-on, 48-off schedule. Overtime is then paid at one-and-a-half times that base rate. Employees receive a fixed semimonthly paycheck, which the county said functions as an advance on total annual compensation.
The district court found that EMS workers were underpaid during four pay periods that included three workweeks, but overpaid during the remaining pay periods, effectively balancing out their compensation over the year. That structure, the court said, resulted in a statutory violation without measurable damages.
Cleveland County now argues that even the finding of an FLSA violation was incorrect, asserting that federal law does not prohibit employers from structuring salaries to cover both straight-time and anticipated overtime hours.
“The county paid Conner a salary in exchange for all hours it expected her to work,” the county said. “Nothing in the FLSA barred that arrangement.”
The county also challenged the district court’s decision to certify a class and collective action, arguing that statutes of limitation had expired for all absent class members and that equitable tolling should not apply.
Conner, for her part, maintains that county ordinances treat 24-on, 48-off EMS workers as salaried, nonexempt employees entitled to pay within specified salary ranges, and that the county’s compensation calculations conflicted with those rules.
Representatives for Cleveland County declined to comment Tuesday. Counsel for the EMS workers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The workers are represented by Philip J. Gibbons Jr. and Corey M. Stanton of Gibbons Law Group PLLC.
Cleveland County is represented by Christopher S. Edwards, Mark S. Wigley, and Grant B. Osborne of Ward & Smith PA.
The case is Sara Conner v. Cleveland County, case numbers 25-1488 and 25-1428, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
