San Diego is paying seven helicopter rescue medics a total of $442,000 because they didn’t receive overtime pay despite regularly working 56-hour weeks.
Federal law requires overtime pay of one and a half times the regular wage for all hours worked over 40 in one workweek, but there is an exemption for government workers engaged in fire suppression. Helicopter rescue medics had long been covered under that exemption, but a federal appeals court ruling in 2014 ended that because the duties of helicopter medics don’t include putting out fires. San Diego officials shrunk the workweeks of the medics down from 56 to 40 hours in early 2017, but the medics filed lawsuits last year seeking overtime pay for the period between the federal ruling and when their workweeks were shortened.