Earl L. Kierstead v. City San Antonio

This is a municipal labor contract case involving a claim by six San Antonio emergency medical technicians ("EMTs") against the City of San Antonio ("City") for overtime back pay. The EMTs were originally firefighters who had been trained and assigned to work as EMTs in the emergency medical service of the Citys fire department. Though they were employed in a specifically non-firefighting capacity as EMTs, they were obligated to work the 56 hour work week of firefighting personnel under the employment contracts covering the fiscal years ("FY") of 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979. This hourly assignment contradicted the civil service specifications of TEX. REV. CIV. STAT. ANN. art. 1269p, ? 6 that non-firefighting fire personnel only work a "normal" City employee work week of 40 hours. The EMTs claim in the instant action was for the difference between the 56 hour week and the 40 hour week as uncompensated time and a half overtime due on a written contract for all the weeks they were assigned to train or work as EMTs under the FY 1975 through FY 1979 contracts. They predicated their suit on the Art. 1269p, ? 6 normal work week provision for non-firefighters as a term implied by law in each of their contracts.