# Renfro v. Indiana Michigan Power Co.

> Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit · July 18, 2007 · 497 F.3d 573

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9848573

## Case

- **Full name:** Kurt RENFRO; William Southworth; Richard Peterson; James Fitchuk, Individually and as Class Representatives on Behalf of Other Persons Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. INDIANA MICHIGAN POWER COMPANY, D/B/A American Electric Power, Defendant-Appellant
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- **Decided:** July 18, 2007
- **Citations:** 497 F.3d 573; 12 Wage & Hour Cas.2d (BNA) 1281; 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 16990; 2007 WL 2048953
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by O'Malley
- **Judges:** Rogers, Cook, O'Malley
- **Cited by:** 34 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9848573

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that technical writers who develop written procedures, without constant supervision or step-by-step assignments, exercise discretion and independent judgment, because two different technical writers could produce substantially different work products performing the sam…
- concluding that “[l]ooking to various source materials for ... technical information ... does not detract from the import of the discretion and independent judgment exercised”
- noting, in the course of finding adequate discretion among nuclear power plant employees, that the technical manual they used “provide[d] a guideline on how to develop a procedure, not an encyclopedia of strict requirements”
- holding that an employer must establish all three elements of the defense with regard to its employees in order to prevail

## Opinion text

KATHLEEN M. O’MALLEY, District Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The underlying litigation actually involves three classes of plaintiffs employed by AEP at the Cook power plant: technical writers, planners, and nuclear specialists. Guided by this Court’s prior decisions on this precise issue, the district court did a very careful job of analyzing and differentiating between the three job classifications-each of which AEP considered to be exempt from the FLSA’s overtime provisions. In determining that, for purposes of the cross-motions involved in this appeal, the technical writers were non-exempt employees, Senior Judge Wendell A. Miles had a thorough and well-developed record before him detailing the day-to-day job duties involved in all three positions. He also had a specialized familiarity with the parties, their counsel, and the issues involved in this case, having been assigned to similar FLSA litigation involving AEP and other employees at its nuclear power plants. While Judge Miles ultimately concluded the technical writers were entitled to overtime wages, he carefully drew distinctions between the writers and the two classifications of employees he concluded were not entitled to overtime wages-i.e., the planners and nuclear specialists. Given the district court judge’s detailed familiarity with the respective job duties, the full record that was developed, and the careful procedure the court employed, I would defer to the district court’s determination.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9848573. Public record. Not legal advice.