Larry L. Barnes sued Omnicell in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, raising claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Colorado law for unpaid wages. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Omnicell, and Barnes appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Factual Overview
Barnes worked for Omnicell as a Technical Service Engineer (TSE) from 2003 to 2021. His job responsibilities included providing troubleshooting, repair services, remote monitoring, and preventative maintenance for Omnicell’s medication control devices. Barnes worked remotely from his home in Colorado and was responsible for servicing Omnicell’s customers in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
Omnicell paid Barnes for forty hours of work each week and time and one-half for all hours worked over forty. When Barnes was not working his forty-hour work week, he was on call. Barnes claimed that he was entitled to be paid for all the time he was on call, arguing that he was on duty 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Legal Analysis
The Tenth Circuit addressed several evidentiary challenges raised by Barnes on appeal. These challenges were critical to the court’s review of the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Omnicell because the court can only consider admissible evidence when reviewing a summary judgment order.
Unauthenticated Exhibits: Barnes argued that the district court erred in refusing to consider his exhibits, claiming that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c)(4) allows declarations to support or oppose summary judgment motions. However, the Tenth Circuit noted that Federal Rule of Evidence 901, not Rule 56, governs whether a document is authentic.
The district court determined that Barnes’s exhibits were not properly authenticated because, although he declared that the statements in the exhibits were correct, he failed to accompany the exhibits with an affidavit that authenticated the documents. Additionally, some documents appeared to have been altered or cut and pasted from other versions, and not all of the documents were produced to Omnicell in the form presented. The Tenth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the exhibits.
Joe Coyne’s Affidavit: Barnes objected to the affidavit of his former manager, Joe Coyne, claiming that it was “full of lies.” However, the district court found that Barnes’s objections lacked specificity because he failed to identify the parts of the magistrate judge’s recommendation that contained the alleged lies. The objections were also responsive to the affidavit itself, rather than to the recommendation.
The Tenth Circuit held that Barnes’s objections were not sufficiently specific to focus the district court’s attention on the legal and factual issues, and therefore, the argument was waived under the court’s firm-waiver rule.
Undisputed Facts on the Parties’ Motions for Summary Judgment: Barnes objected to numerous undisputed facts identified by the magistrate judge in the recommendation on summary judgment. The district court overruled these objections on several grounds, including that they were waived when Barnes failed to raise them in response to Omnicell’s motion for summary judgment, they were unsupported or contradicted by record evidence, and/or they were based on exhibits that had not been properly authenticated.
On appeal, Barnes failed to develop any reasoned argument of error regarding the district court’s disposition of the undisputed facts. The Tenth Circuit held that Barnes had waived appellate review by failing to comply with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(8)(A), which requires an appellant’s brief to contain contentions and reasons for them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the record on which the appellant relies.
Summary Judgment on the FLSA Claim: The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Omnicell on Barnes’s FLSA claim. The court found that Barnes was “waiting to be engaged” because he could engage in personal activities while waiting to be called for work, was not required to remain on or near Omnicell’s premises, the frequency of calls was not unduly restrictive, and his job did not require the same readiness as a firefighter.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of Omnicell on all claims.
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