December 2018 - Parks & Recreation - 30

LAW REVIEW

nal purchasing authority. " Ultimately,
Watts " testified that he believed his
primary duty was 'to manage.' "

Manual Work Duties
Watts claimed the FLSA administrative employee exception did not
apply to his position because " his
primary duty did not involve 'office
or non-manual work' as required
under the regulation. " On the contrary, Watts claimed his work duties
included manual work. According
to Watts, the county executive had
told him " it was his responsibility
to pick up trash around the park

where manual tasks are merely incidental to a primary, non-manual
duty, such as managing the park and
its employees on the whole. "
In this instance, the court
found that " Watts's occasional
labor-heavy tasks appear to be peripheral to his supervisory role as
a manager of the Carroll County Parks and Recreation department. " As described by the court,
the county executive had " confined
Watts to his office for a period of
time, " which " suggested Westrick
believed Watts could carry out his
duties as Parks and Recreation Director from behind a desk. "

Discretion and
Independent Judgment

and to personally deliver checks to
employees. " Moreover, Watts said
he " also helped other employees
with various manual projects, such
as putting wind screens around
batting cages, pumping water out
of the park fields, and transporting
bags full of sports equipment. "
The federal district court, however, noted that such manual labor
activities engaged in by Watts would
" not preclude a conclusion that his
primary duty was management-related. " On the contrary, the court
acknowledged that " employees 'can
perform some manual work without
losing exempt status,' particularly
28

Parks & Recreation

For the FLSA administrative employee exception to apply, the court
would also require Carroll County
Fiscal Court to prove Watts's primary duty as parks and recreation
director " included the exercise of
discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of
significance. " Within the context
of this FLSA exception, the court
characterized discretion and independent judgment as follows:
In general, the exercise of discretion and independent judgment
involves the comparison and the
evaluation of possible courses of
conduct, and acting or making a decision after the various possibilities
have been considered. This prong
can be satisfied even if an employee
is subject to «active supervision» or
if his work is heavily regulated.
Once again, the court found pretrial " conflicting evidence " would
preclude the granting of summary
judgment in favor of Carroll County.
On one hand, the court found evidence that Watts could exercise dis-

| D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8 | W W W. PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N . O R G

cretion and independent judgment
as parks and recreation director. As
noted by the court, the county executive had " originally told Watts
his role [as parks and recreation
director] would be to 'oversee the
Park & Recs of the Carroll County
Park, completely.' Watts testified
that [the county executive] told
him that 'he didn't know anything
about Parks and Recreation and
that he just needed somebody to
come in and clean it up.' " Further,
the court found that " Watts was
allegedly tasked with a number of
decision-making responsibilities,
such as developing a budget, creating a website, recommending certain personnel actions, and more. "
As characterized by the court, this
pretrial evidence suggested " Watts
had sufficient authority to make
decisions out of his own discretion
and independent judgment. "
On the other hand, the federal
district court cited the following
pretrial evidence which suggested that the county executive, Westrick, was " really the party in
control of Parks and Recreation
decision-making:
Westrick complained during his
deposition of 'long emails' Watts
used to send him suggesting new
programs the Parks and Recreation
department could pursue. According to Westrick, he told Watts 'no,
that we're not going to pursue different issues, different programs
that goes on in the school at this
county park. No.' Westrick then
complained of Watts's persistence
in sending recommendations.
On one occasion, Westrick apparently gave Watts grief for ordering a storage building with a green
roof, instead of the blue roof Westrick had requested. And Watts

December 2018 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2018 - Parks & Recreation