[00:00:01] Speaker 03:
OK, welcome back.

[00:00:03] Speaker 03:
And we'll turn to the last case we have set for argument today, which is Hunt versus County of Los Angeles, case number 23-55778.

[00:00:12] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:00:20] Speaker 01:
I'd like to reserve three minutes for rebuttal.

[00:00:22] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:00:24] Speaker 01:
May it please the court.

[00:00:25] Speaker 01:
My name is Charles Ray, and I am the attorney for the appellant in this case, Mr. Brian Hunt.

[00:00:30] Speaker 01:
And the main central issue of this appeal and Mr. Hunt's argument basically is one specific statement, that when an employer requires you to be somewhere and requires you to do something, it must pay you for the time to carry out that task, whatever it may be.

[00:00:47] Speaker 03:
That may be true but so requires you to be somewhere that is somewhat true here requires you to do something as it seems to be where your client might fall short because it only what it required him to do was attend classes for 10 hours a day they paid him for that including the overtime that week what they didn't do was require him to do anything in the other hours

[00:01:11] Speaker 01:
I would respectfully disagree with that analysis.

[00:01:14] Speaker 01:
When we look at the hotel agreement, which served as the guidelines for when he was staying at the hotel, driving to your point of when he was away from the training grounds, there were specific requirements of him at all times while he was there.

[00:01:28] Speaker 01:
Specifically, he was required to remain in a constant state of readiness.

[00:01:33] Speaker 01:
And it says that on the first page of the hotel agreement,

[00:01:36] Speaker 01:
It says specifically that you're representing the department at all times and that you're to remain in that constant state of readiness at all times.

[00:01:43] Speaker 01:
Now, whether or not Mr. Hunt was required to respond to an emergency or do anything is irrelevant to the fact that he was still under this burden as soon as he basically passed the threshold of reporting to the hotel on Sunday night.

[00:01:59] Speaker 01:
it's Appellant's position that he was required to do something, and he's required to maintain not only the readiness, but the guidelines of social distancing.

[00:02:08] Speaker 01:
I think we need to give some context to the hotel itself.

[00:02:12] Speaker 01:
This was not a vacation for Mr. Hunt.

[00:02:14] Speaker 01:
He was removed from his home at a time when the stay at home order was in effect.

[00:02:19] Speaker 01:
There were only two places typically that Mr. Hunt could have been at during that time.

[00:02:25] Speaker 01:
That was his home or at work if he was an essential worker.

[00:02:29] Speaker 01:
by placing him in this hotel, it went against what the essence of the state home order was, which was to limit, limit opportunity.

[00:02:38] Speaker 03:
I mean, the other option was he could have just, I mean, that seems to be a different argument because I mean, he had the option not to go here.

[00:02:45] Speaker 03:
This was not the, they said you could defer training.

[00:02:48] Speaker 03:
This was their accommodation under difficult.

[00:02:51] Speaker 01:
COVID circumstances.

[00:02:53] Speaker 01:
Respectfully, I disagree that it's an accommodation because what it does is it added another instance or opportunity for transmission of the virus.

[00:03:00] Speaker 03:
But then if he was worried about that, then he didn't need to go.

[00:03:04] Speaker 03:
I'm sure there were a lot of people who felt that way and deferred their training.

[00:03:07] Speaker 01:
His worry about the transmission of that is irrelevant to the requirement that he was ordered to do this per his job in order to attend the Academy.

[00:03:15] Speaker 01:
That's Appellant's position on that specific issue.

[00:03:18] Speaker 01:
that if he's required to be there and required to be at a set place at a set specific amount of time, you have to pay him for the time that it's there.

[00:03:25] Speaker 01:
And the CFR at 785, FIT 0.15 and 0.17 are very clear on this.

[00:03:32] Speaker 01:
And I think what this leads us to is what Appellant believes is the seminal case on this.

[00:03:37] Speaker 03:
I mean, I guess what you're really arguing, if you look at the regulation at 226C,

[00:03:42] Speaker 03:
It says, well, that regulation says you're not on duty if you're free to use your time for personal pursuits.

[00:03:51] Speaker 03:
So why wouldn't we apply that and say he was free to use his time for personal pursuits?

[00:03:57] Speaker 03:
You don't think he was.

[00:03:58] Speaker 01:
I appreciate that question.

[00:03:59] Speaker 01:
And the Ninth has already addressed this issue in Brigham.

[00:04:02] Speaker 01:
And Brigham, where the appellant feels, is the mechanism to put this whole case through, because it deals with the two central issues that were decided by the district court.

[00:04:12] Speaker 01:
In Brigham, there were hydraulic workers on a power plant and they were required to be on the grounds that they were living on and they had a whole bunch of freedoms.

[00:04:23] Speaker 01:
Their families were living there.

[00:04:25] Speaker 01:
They were noted that they could work on motorcycles.

[00:04:27] Speaker 01:
They could work and they could sit there and go over homework with their children.

[00:04:30] Speaker 01:
They could watch television.

[00:04:32] Speaker 01:
If we look at the amount of freedom

[00:04:35] Speaker 01:
that the Brigham plaintiffs had, and we compare it to where Mr. Hunt was, he was not at home, he was removed from his house, placed in a hotel under constant state of readiness, and was not given the level of freedom that the Brigham plaintiffs were, which at that time and that point in the analysis was deemed to be, okay, they're so tethered and geographically restricted.

[00:04:57] Speaker 01:
And that's from the reading of Brigham, that it was found at that stage in the analysis

[00:05:04] Speaker 01:
that it was found to be in favor of the employees, that the time was not theirs because of that geographical restriction.

[00:05:12] Speaker 00:
And that was something that was... Did he sleep at the hotel?

[00:05:16] Speaker 01:
Yes, he did.

[00:05:17] Speaker 00:
And his sleep was uninterrupted, correct?

[00:05:20] Speaker 01:
To the best of my knowledge, yes.

[00:05:21] Speaker 01:
And so in that same frame of mind, that's no different than being at the fire station

[00:05:28] Speaker 01:
when you have uninterrupted sleep there.

[00:05:31] Speaker 01:
The essence of being required to respond to emergency is not what Appellant feels is the dispositive factor here.

[00:05:38] Speaker 01:
The factor is that he was required to be somewhere and under a constant requirement to perform or be doing something in that constant state of readiness while at the hotel.

[00:05:47] Speaker 01:
This removed him, and again, added a circumstance that removed him from the safety of his own home, these are firefighters, and they paid command staff for the same purpose, to keep an eye on them, to make sure if they needed anything during this time.

[00:06:01] Speaker 01:
I see no distinction between command staff keeping an eye if they need help, and Mr. Hunt being there as a requirement for his job to attend the academy.

[00:06:10] Speaker 01:
I just don't see a distinction there on that point.

[00:06:14] Speaker 01:
When we go back to the Brigham analysis, we look at just where Mr. Hunt's freedom was.

[00:06:19] Speaker 03:
He states at multiple— I guess part—I mean, what you're analogizing is your client's, what you allege, duty to be at readiness.

[00:06:28] Speaker 03:
The same thing with the commanders, who presumably were supposed to—they were working

[00:06:34] Speaker 03:
presumably off the clock or you know after hours because they were accommodating requests or making sure that you know everybody had their needs met at the hotel so that it seems different because they actually had actual tasks I'm assuming they were performing and checking in on everybody making sure that

[00:06:55] Speaker 03:
You know, everybody was actually there.

[00:06:58] Speaker 03:
I mean, there was a requirement that they not leave the hotel.

[00:07:00] Speaker 03:
So it just seems like it's a different analysis there.

[00:07:05] Speaker 01:
I appreciate that question.

[00:07:06] Speaker 01:
And when we look at in our opening brief, we address the fact of what exactly is work.

[00:07:13] Speaker 01:
And we refer back to the Tennessee Cole case and also the record.

[00:07:16] Speaker 00:
Can you point me to any place in the record where you have evidence to show that he was required to perform any work?

[00:07:24] Speaker 00:
Because I am addressing through the brig of factors that you're talking about when I'm looking at er 536 and 537 and there are a number of Undisputed facts that go to this question about the freedom that he had so I I would like so I can see that But can you point me to anywhere in the record where there's evidence to suggest that he was required to work?

[00:07:47] Speaker 01:
Right and I think first to answer your question I want to do answer my question I'd like you to point me to someplace in the record okay in the record I would point to the hotel agreement and the requirements that were placed on him at all so really you're relying on the readiness that the fact that it while you're in the hotel you.

[00:08:02] Speaker 00:
need to at least be available to respond to a call.

[00:08:05] Speaker 01:
That's it.

[00:08:05] Speaker 01:
I believe he was always under that duty from the moment he reported.

[00:08:10] Speaker 01:
And at that point as well, if we go back to a definition of what work is in our opening brief, we reference the Tennessee Cole case, the Armour versus Warnock, and the Alvarez case, which all stand for the premise that you can require someone to work that doesn't require physical or mental exertion.

[00:08:27] Speaker 01:
You can actually pay someone to do nothing.

[00:08:30] Speaker 01:
just sit there.

[00:08:31] Speaker 01:
And that's essentially what they were doing here.

[00:08:33] Speaker 01:
Mr. Hunt and his fellow classmates were essentially holstered for whatever the county needed during the time when they were at the hotel.

[00:08:42] Speaker 02:
But the regulations seem to contemplate that there can be situations where an employer requires somebody to be present and maybe be on call.

[00:08:50] Speaker 02:
But if they're still free to use the time doing what they want, then that's not

[00:08:57] Speaker 02:
That doesn't count as work, right?

[00:08:59] Speaker 01:
There's a distinction in that because the amount of freedom that you have in that time is what Brigham contemplates.

[00:09:06] Speaker 01:
And so they're saying that the tethering that was there in the geographical restrictions rendered that time as not as as compensable because of that restriction.

[00:09:15] Speaker 01:
So there are some limits to this.

[00:09:17] Speaker 01:
The Banks case that was also noted in the opposition had candidates that were allowed to leave, go to pizza places and, you know, and the mall and things like that.

[00:09:26] Speaker 01:
And that level of freedom, if we stack this, we have an appellant's position that Mr. Hunt was the lowest level of freedom.

[00:09:34] Speaker 01:
We have the Brigham standard, which is far more and above what Mr. Hunt had.

[00:09:39] Speaker 01:
And then you have the banks folks who were allowed to basically leave and go wherever they wanted to after two weeks after reporting to the academy.

[00:09:47] Speaker 01:
So when we're looking at this, it's not just in a vacuum of, did you have freedom?

[00:09:52] Speaker 01:
It really is a question of how much, and that's what Brigham contemplated.

[00:09:56] Speaker 02:
But there is a regulation specific to the sort of police and fire training context where I did 533.226.

[00:10:04] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:10:06] Speaker 02:
And that refers to being free to use the time for personal pursuits, not

[00:10:12] Speaker 02:
being free to leave the premises and go somewhere else necessarily.

[00:10:16] Speaker 02:
So, and I guess I think this is the same question that Judge Desai was asking.

[00:10:22] Speaker 02:
Is there anything in the record to suggest that he wasn't, like he had to stay there, but while he was there, he could be,

[00:10:28] Speaker 02:
you know, reading or watching TV or playing cards or whatever.

[00:10:32] Speaker 01:
I agree with all of those things, but he was doing it in the limited circumstances and geographical restrictions that were set on him by the county.

[00:10:39] Speaker 01:
And if he violated those, he couldn't continue with the academy.

[00:10:43] Speaker 01:
We're talking about something that's integral and indispensable, which is the integrity case.

[00:10:48] Speaker 01:
They talk about having to put on safety clothing before you enter into a battery factory.

[00:10:54] Speaker 01:
And I submit to you that there's no difference here, that in every day that he reported from the Sunday night, he reported that was in advance of the following Monday when he trained.

[00:11:03] Speaker 01:
When he went to the hotel on the Tuesday, or Monday night, excuse me, that was in advance of reporting to training the following day on the Tuesday.

[00:11:11] Speaker 01:
These were requirements that he had

[00:11:12] Speaker 01:
had to perform in order to basically work his essential job, which was being an academy attendee.

[00:11:22] Speaker 01:
That's the distinction that I find here.

[00:11:23] Speaker 01:
And being under that constant requirement of readiness is something that we can't just dissuade away and toss aside because he could watch television at night.

[00:11:33] Speaker 01:
Because that's not the standard that we apply to firefighters at a station.

[00:11:38] Speaker 01:
I don't see a difference or distinction in that and why his amount of freedom, which is exactly the same as out of fire stations, somehow disqualifies him from being permitted to say that, yeah, I was working while I was there because I had to do things the entire time.

[00:11:54] Speaker 01:
Moving to the second phase of the Brigham analysis that the district court found was a constructive agreement.

[00:12:02] Speaker 01:
And this is something that we really take issue with specifically because in the cases cited, the Cartman and Watson, excuse me, we point to a fact where there was a specific communication of a pay policy or some type of communication about what time was not going to be deemed.

[00:12:22] Speaker 01:
for pay.

[00:12:24] Speaker 01:
And so at that time here, what the county is trying to have this court accept is that when someone looks at their paycheck, that's the equivalent of the communication of a pay policy.

[00:12:35] Speaker 01:
And that's just not something that we feel flies freely from basic contract principles, which basically a constructive agreement is.

[00:12:45] Speaker 01:
And so based upon that, we feel that the constructive agreement is just not present.

[00:12:50] Speaker 01:
There's no actual offer.

[00:12:52] Speaker 01:
There was no actual acceptance because he says in the record that he was actually confused when he got his first paycheck.

[00:12:58] Speaker 01:
And at that time as well, even if we're to accept that from the time that he viewed his paycheck going forward, there was a constructive agreement, you cannot reply that retroactively.

[00:13:07] Speaker 01:
It would be from that moment forward, the meeting of the minds, the understanding, this is how I'm being paid moving forward.

[00:13:13] Speaker 01:
And so I'll reserve the rest of my time at this, but thank you very much.

[00:13:25] Speaker 04:
Good morning, your honor.

[00:13:26] Speaker 04:
May it please the court, Elizabeth Arcee, on behalf of the County of Los Angeles.

[00:13:31] Speaker 04:
I'd like to use my time to focus my addressing several points that were made by the appellant's counsel.

[00:13:39] Speaker 04:
Appellant's counsel, you know, primarily argues that the reason why he felt that he feels that his client should be compensated is because he points to one provision in the hotel agreement that talks about being mentally and physically available.

[00:13:54] Speaker 04:
Under the case law that is available to us in this context, the case law says that in order to determine whether the time in the hotel could be used predominantly for the employee's benefit, because as Judge Miller pointed out, there's a 553.226 that talks about that while a fire recruit is in the academy, if they are free to use such time for personal pursuits,

[00:14:24] Speaker 04:
that such free time is not compensable.

[00:14:26] Speaker 04:
So in analyzing that, you are supposed to look at the surrounding circumstances, not just the one line item in a hotel agreement that is pointed out by the agency council.

[00:14:38] Speaker 03:
Can I back up the regulation?

[00:14:40] Speaker 03:
Is that just to the academy, or is that for all firefighters?

[00:14:44] Speaker 04:
So 553.226 subsection C states that police officers or employees in fire protection activities

[00:14:54] Speaker 04:
who are in attendance at a police or fire academy or training facility.

[00:14:58] Speaker 03:
This is completely different from somebody who's an employee at the firehouse who might actually, they at least wouldn't be covered by this regulation.

[00:15:07] Speaker 03:
If they were there, even if there was no fire that day, they didn't have to respond to anything.

[00:15:11] Speaker 03:
They sat around for 24 hours.

[00:15:13] Speaker 03:
I don't know if that ever happens, but then they would have to get paid for all of that.

[00:15:17] Speaker 03:
At least they wouldn't, there may be another regulation, but not this one.

[00:15:20] Speaker 04:
Correct, right.

[00:15:21] Speaker 04:
This regulation does recognize that there is a free time, and as long as that free time is used predominantly for the employee's benefit that they can engage in personal pursuits, the regulations contemplate that that's not going to be compensable time.

[00:15:38] Speaker 04:
And so I would submit that the one line about being mentally and physically available is not enough by itself to turn that time into compensable time.

[00:15:49] Speaker 04:
the district court properly found that you are supposed to look at the all surrounding circumstances.

[00:15:54] Speaker 04:
And when you read other parts of the hotel agreement, it does indicate that it does make a distinction between working time as well as on the training grounds versus time in the hotel.

[00:16:12] Speaker 04:
And that's in section one.

[00:16:14] Speaker 04:
And for the record citation, it's at page

[00:16:17] Speaker 04:
In addition to the hotel agreement delineating between working time on the training grounds versus time in the hotel, the facts show us in this case that Mr. Hunt, once he completed training and the other trainees,

[00:16:34] Speaker 04:
return to hotel, it's undisputed that they were not required to respond to calls for service.

[00:16:41] Speaker 00:
You would agree that the hotel agreement is really an agreement that the time at the hotel would not be compensable, correct?

[00:16:50] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:16:51] Speaker 00:
It's not an agreement for not compensating his time, which is different.

[00:16:58] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:16:59] Speaker 00:
So how does the absence of an agreement

[00:17:04] Speaker 00:
become a constructive agreement on that point?

[00:17:08] Speaker 04:
Well, what the case law instructs us is that, so in looking at, so there's another regulation that the district court looked at that we also believe is applicable to this situation, and that's 785.23.

[00:17:21] Speaker 04:
And what that regulation provides for is that the parties can reach an agreement to try to delineate between work time versus non-work time in terms of compensability.

[00:17:34] Speaker 04:
And in the case law that is available that have interpreted that provision, they have found that a constructive agreement can be reached, a constructive or an implied agreement.

[00:17:44] Speaker 04:
And in determining that, again, you would look at the totality of the circumstances to determine whether there was an agreement.

[00:17:54] Speaker 04:
And there are many cases that we've cited to in our brief where a constructive or implied agreement was found in situations where

[00:18:03] Speaker 04:
The employee, as in this instance, for example, knew Mr. Hunt was, he received an offer letter in which he was supposed to be paid approximately $5,000 a month.

[00:18:18] Speaker 04:
He was never told that he would receive additional compensation over and above the amount contained in the offer letter.

[00:18:25] Speaker 04:
All the hotel agreement says is that

[00:18:31] Speaker 04:
in consideration of being provided paid lodging at the DoubleTree Hotel, DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, that he was going to agree to these conditions, what I would call rules of conduct in the hotel, to ensure that the recruits are following some sort of rules of decorum in the hotel, that they are going to be on their best behavior in the hotel.

[00:18:55] Speaker 04:
He was presented with the agreement that did not state that he was going to receive additional compensation.

[00:19:01] Speaker 04:
Again, the hotel agreement only being mentioned being provided paid lodgings.

[00:19:08] Speaker 04:
He also understood during his deposition, Mr. Hunt testified that he understood he was going to be paid for 40 hours of straight time.

[00:19:16] Speaker 04:
plus 20 hours of overtime.

[00:19:17] Speaker 04:
And that was because of due to COVID, what would have been a longer academy, a 16 week academy, it was now going to be condensed down to eight weeks with the first four weeks being at the training facility in which they would be housed in this hotel.

[00:19:34] Speaker 03:
So he actually was paid more for the contends version because he got overtime for Friday and Saturday, which he wouldn't have under the longer version.

[00:19:42] Speaker 04:
Correct.

[00:19:43] Speaker 04:
Because had the academy had COVID not happened and the academy had proceeded in its normal course, the trainees would have been essentially working eight hours a day.

[00:19:52] Speaker 04:
But because they condensed the academy,

[00:19:55] Speaker 04:
The training days were longer now.

[00:19:56] Speaker 04:
They were 10-hour days.

[00:19:58] Speaker 03:
Can you address the commander portion?

[00:20:00] Speaker 03:
He claims that the commanders were paid for, I don't know, were they paid for the full 24 hours?

[00:20:06] Speaker 04:
They were paid for the full 24 hours that they were there.

[00:20:09] Speaker 04:
And the reason for that is, I believe Your Honor alluded it to earlier, they were still essentially on duty once they returned to hotel because

[00:20:20] Speaker 03:
But it's not because they weren't, I mean the other way to look at this is they weren't trainees, so they therefore weren't covered by the, were they covered by the regulation?

[00:20:31] Speaker 04:
Well, I would argue they probably wouldn't be under 553 point.

[00:20:37] Speaker 04:
226.

[00:20:39] Speaker 03:
Right.

[00:20:39] Speaker 03:
Because they weren't trainees.

[00:20:41] Speaker 04:
Correct.

[00:20:41] Speaker 04:
They were not trainees.

[00:20:42] Speaker 04:
But the training staff or command staff, their purpose after training was to monitor the trainees to make sure their needs were attended to.

[00:20:54] Speaker 04:
They also could be subject to interruption in the hotel if a trainee fell ill, for example, needed medication, or for whatever reason, there actually is

[00:21:07] Speaker 04:
Some language in the hotel agreement indicating that if a trainee wishes to leave the leave the premises, they had to get permission.

[00:21:15] Speaker 04:
So the, the, the wisdom behind why the command staff or the training staff got paid was because they could be interrupted.

[00:21:23] Speaker 04:
So much like a situation.

[00:21:25] Speaker 04:
in a firehouse where in between responding to calls for service, a firefighter could be interrupted.

[00:21:34] Speaker 04:
That's why they are paid for all 24 hours.

[00:21:38] Speaker 04:
In this situation, as the court noted, Mr. Hunt and the trainees, once they return to the hotel,

[00:21:45] Speaker 04:
were off duty.

[00:21:46] Speaker 04:
Yes, arguably they were limited in terms of whether they could leave, but I would remind your honors that this was COVID.

[00:21:55] Speaker 04:
So, you know, the intent of having the hotel requirement was to basically create a bubble to try to limit transmission of the COVID.

[00:22:09] Speaker 04:
Mr. Hunt had the ability to defer.

[00:22:12] Speaker 04:
But yes, once he made the decision to continue with the academy, then yes, he had to follow the rules.

[00:22:19] Speaker 03:
If he had worked in the evenings, say they said, hey, we've got a new program coming out.

[00:22:26] Speaker 03:
We want you to get trained on that.

[00:22:28] Speaker 03:
There's a 7 o'clock session for an hour.

[00:22:31] Speaker 03:
Would he have gotten paid for that?

[00:22:33] Speaker 03:
Or do you think you'd say no because of the constructive agreement?

[00:22:38] Speaker 04:
Um, hypothetically, well, partly hypothetically and partly factually, yes, he probably would have gotten paid for it because during some of the evenings there were night drills.

[00:22:49] Speaker 04:
Um, we mentioned this in the record.

[00:22:51] Speaker 04:
Uh, so what happened on those?

[00:22:53] Speaker 04:
Yes, correct.

[00:22:54] Speaker 03:
That wasn't just lumped into the, hey, we're paying you 10 hours.

[00:22:58] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:22:59] Speaker 04:
It was, it was, yes, it got lumped into the 10 hours plus the 20 hours of overtime.

[00:23:05] Speaker 04:
So he actually got paid 60 hours a week, 40 hours.

[00:23:07] Speaker 03:
It wasn't in addition to that.

[00:23:09] Speaker 03:
There was no payment that went out in addition to those 10 hours though.

[00:23:12] Speaker 03:
It's just that some of those 10 hours happened in the evening.

[00:23:15] Speaker 04:
Well, it was actually a cumulative of 60 hours.

[00:23:18] Speaker 04:
Mr. Hunt.

[00:23:19] Speaker 04:
I meant per day.

[00:23:20] Speaker 04:
Yes, per day.

[00:23:21] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:23:22] Speaker 04:
And so to the extent that there was evening drills, they adjusted the hours so that it would cover that time.

[00:23:32] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:23:34] Speaker 04:
So if there are any other questions.

[00:23:37] Speaker 03:
I don't think so.

[00:23:38] Speaker 04:
OK.

[00:23:38] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:23:38] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:23:54] Speaker 01:
Just briefly to address what I think we need to keep the eyes on the target on in this specific appeal is, is that Mr. Hunt was not free to engage in the level of pursuit that deemed the hotel time is non-compensable.

[00:24:07] Speaker 01:
When we, I keep going back to the Brigham case, but the amount of freedom that he had there was far below what this, what the ninth is already deemed to be compensable time.

[00:24:16] Speaker 01:
Furthermore, when we're talking more about the constructive agreement here, it's in the record at volume four, page 734, lines 17 to 23.

[00:24:27] Speaker 01:
He says that when he looked at his paycheck, he was confused.

[00:24:31] Speaker 01:
And to counsel's point, yes, there was an offer letter that went out and then that was changed in terms of his pay structure and he was never informed of that and that's in the record as well.

[00:24:41] Speaker 01:
When we take all of these facts and we put them together, it's clear that Mr. Houghton was required to be somewhere

[00:24:46] Speaker 01:
at a hotel under a constant state of readiness at the requirement in order to attend the academy at this time.

[00:24:52] Speaker 01:
Now, remind you, he left his home.

[00:24:54] Speaker 01:
There's no other jobs.

[00:24:55] Speaker 01:
This is the middle of COVID.

[00:24:57] Speaker 01:
To say that he could have deferred is not taking in.

[00:24:59] Speaker 01:
If we're going to talk about totality of circumstances, how's he going to support his family?

[00:25:04] Speaker 01:
If he's going to defer later on, he's not going to get a paycheck.

[00:25:07] Speaker 01:
So based upon all of those factors, we see here that if you want to work for us, this is what you have to do.

[00:25:13] Speaker 01:
And when you have to do those things and requires that geographical and tethering restriction per Brigham, that that qualifies as compensable time.

[00:25:22] Speaker 01:
Barring any other questions, I would submit on the briefs.

[00:25:25] Speaker 03:
Okay.

[00:25:25] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:25:25] Speaker 03:
Thank you to both counsel that the case is now submitted and that concludes our arguments for the day.