Philadelphia denied overtime pay to 230 ranking police officers, lawsuit says
The two chief inspectors say they represent about 230 of their current and former peers who were similarly denied overtime pay when responding to emergencies.
More than 200 Philadelphia Police Department ranking officers were denied overtime pay for emergencies for over a decade, attorneys contend in a class-action lawsuit.
The lawsuit, brought by two chief inspectors, claims that the department didn’t inform ranking officers, such as captains and inspectors, of a 2013 policy change that made them eligible for overtime pay for emergency work that goes beyond their scheduled hours.
In a court filing last week, the inspectors asked a federal judge to certify their case as a class action, saying they represent about 230 current and former officers who were denied pay in the 12 years since the rule change. Court documents don’t say how much overtime the officers would collectively be owed.
Christopher Flacco, chief inspector for the narcotics division, and Winton Singletary, a chief inspector and former SWAT team captain, filed the lawsuit in August 2024. The complaint names as defendants police commissioners dating back to Charles H. Ramsey, who served during former Mayor Michael Nutter’s administration, and through the current commissioner, Kevin Bethel.
A spokesperson for the city’s law department declined to comment.
Traditionally, the collective bargaining agreement between the police department and the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 limited ranking officers’ eligibility for overtime pay, with the exception of specific annual events such as the Mummers’ Parade or July Fourth, the complaint says.
But independent of the union agreement, the suit says, Philadelphia’s Civil Service Commission enacted in September 2013 a rule that expanded overtime pay to ranking police and fire officers who worked during emergencies.
The lawsuit contends that the police department didn’t notify officers of this benefit and didn’t pay overtime when officers logged hours beyond their 40-hour scheduled work week.
“The Individual Defendants and the City were able to cause almost a decade to pass without any PPD ranking officer learning of their entitlement to be paid for emergency work beyond their regularly-scheduled hours,” the complaint says.
When asked in meetings about the failure to pay the emergency overtime, former commissioners Ramsey and Richard Ross “ignored or laughed-off these questions,” according to the complaint. Former Commissioner Danielle Outlaw similarly dismissed questions about the extra pay during debriefs of Black Lives Matter protests in summer 2020, the suit says.
In 2023, the complaint says, officers learned that their peers at the Fire Department had been receiving overtime pay consistent with the policy for years.
The overtime adds up. Flacco says he logged more than 5,100 hours of overtime responding to emergency events since 2013, and Singletary says he logged over 6,900.
The city denied the allegations in court filings.
In asking a judge to dismiss the case, attorneys for the city said some allegations are barred by statute of limitations.
The city further claims that it followed the union contract and that the lawsuit fails to reconcile overtime limits in the collective bargaining agreement with the claim that the ranking officers are owed more pay.
“Plaintiffs have failed to address how or why Defendants should have provided them with compensation that contravened the provisions of the CBA’s limitations on overtime by officers at the ranks covered by the proposed class,” the city said.