Vallejo Mounted Officers Win Landmark FLSA Ruling on At-Home Horse Care, City Settles for $659,880

Officers assigned to the Vallejo Police Department mounted unit were required to stable their department horses at their own residences. Each day before and after their regular shifts, those officers fed, groomed, exercised, and transported the horses, which were used in official patrol duties. The City of Vallejo did not count that home-care time as hours worked and paid no overtime for it. The Department of Labor had issued an opinion letter agreeing with the city, concluding that home horse care was not compensable under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

David E. Mastagni of Mastagni Holstedt filed suit in the Eastern District of California on behalf of the mounted unit officers, arguing that the daily horse-care tasks were an integral part of the officers' job duties and that the time was required by the employer, making it compensable overtime under the FLSA.

In its October 2007 published opinion, the court sided with the officers on every major question. The court overturned the DOL opinion letter, holding it was not entitled to deference because it was inconsistent with the statute and controlling case law. The court found that feeding, grooming, transporting, and training department horses at the officers' homes was work performed for the benefit of the employer, not a personal activity. It also rejected Vallejo's good faith defense, finding the city could not rely on a DOL letter that itself misread the law. Ketchum v. City of Vallejo, 523 F.Supp.2d 1150 (E.D. Cal. 2007) was, at the time of its issuance, the only published federal ruling holding that mounted unit officers must be paid overtime for at-home horse care.

Vallejo filed for Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy in 2008. The officers' FLSA claims, now established by a binding judicial finding of liability, were treated as creditor claims in the bankruptcy proceeding. In 2012 those claims were resolved through the bankruptcy process, with the city paying $659,880 to satisfy the aggregate overtime owed to the mounted unit officers on a pro-rata basis.

The published opinion has been cited in subsequent cases addressing compensability of at-home animal care for law enforcement, providing courts with the clearest federal precedent on when government-owned animals stationed at an employee's home create FLSA overtime obligations for the employing agency.