SCLAWYERSWEEKLY.COM VOLUME 20 NUMBER 4 ■
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4th Circuit recognizes ‘overtime gap time’ claim under FLSA ■ BY CORREY E. STEPHENSON An emergency medical services employee adequately alleged a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act under the theory of “overtime gap time,” the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in reversing summary judgment for the employer. The district court had dismissed the suit based on a “misreading” of the 4th Circuit’s 1996 opinion in Monahan v. County of Chesterfield, Judge James Wynn wrote for the court in its Jan. 5 opinion. Under the correct standard articulated by the panel, the plaintiff survived the defendant’s motion to dismiss.
‘Honor debt’ admission didn’t revive old debt ■ BY HEATH HAMACHER hhamacher@sclawyersweekly.com A father’s signed acknowledgement that an unpaid debt to his ex-wife’s estate was an “honor debt” that was owed to his daughters “both legally and as their father” wasn’t an unequivocal admission the debt was due, and so the statute of limitations precluded his daughters from collecting the debt from his estate, the South Carolina Court of Appeals has ruled. After William Murray and Minnie Murray divorced in 1967, Wil-
liam promised to repay Minnie for personal securities she’d pledged as a collateral for a loan of nearly $143,000. Minnie died three months later, and the debt was transferred to her estate. In 1980, William agreed to repay the loan’s balance of $240,000 and maintain a life insurance policy, but he stopped making payments on both the debt and the policy in 1986. Minnie’s three daughters were the beneficiaries of her estate, and in 1992, they agreed that the debt would become community property between them. In several letters sent to William from 1998 to
Shorted on straight time
2006, Elizabeth Murray, the administrator of the estate, reminded him of the unpaid debt. In one, purportedly signed by William in 2006, she asked him to affirm the “honor debt” that she said he owed both legally and as their father. When William died in 2007, Minnie’s estate filed suit for the balance of the debt. William’s estate filed notices of disallowance of their claim, and the daughters petitioned for allowance. In 2017, Charleston County Probate Court Judge Ta-
Sara B. Conner worked as an emergency medical services employee for Cleveland Emergency Services. EMS personnel are assigned a 21-day repeating schedule in which each employee works a 24hour shift followed by 48 hours off. Individuals on this schedule always work more than 40 hours per week, since they will have at least two — and sometimes three — 24-hour shifts each week. For at least three years prior to 2018, Cleveland County paid Conner pursuant to an ordinance that established salary “grades” with “steps” within each grade, with a plan that provided the calculation for the overtime rate. First, the employee’s regular hourly pay was calculated by
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First conviction, not arrest, started speedy trial clock ■ BY DAVID DONOVAN david.donovan@sclawyersweekly.com A murder conviction handed down to a man whose first conviction had been overturned on appeal more than three years earlier didn’t violate the defendant’s right to a speedy trial because the trial judge properly looked back only to the time since the first conviction was overturned and not the 15 years that had elapsed since the man was
first arrested, the South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled in a case of first impression, affirming a 2020 ruling by the state’s Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court slightly modified the reasoning behind the ruling, holding that the defendant shouldn’t have been penalized because his preferred attorney was under an order of protection due to his role in another high-profile murder trial at the time. Steven Barnes was arrested in 2002 and ac-
cused of killing a teenager in Edgefield. Because Barnes was already incarcerated in Georgia for other crimes, he wasn’t extradited to South Carolina until 2005, and it wasn’t until 2010 that he was finally tried and convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2014, the state’s Supreme Court reversed the conviction because Barnes had been impropSee Speedy trial Page 6 ►
INSIDE VERDICTS & SETTLEMENTS
VERDICTS & SETTLEMENTS
COMMENTARY
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ABA report on lawyers, technology and the pandemic
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