When an Employer Can Be Liable for Unpaid Work Hours
Punch in. Work. Punch out. Lunch. Punch in. Work. Punch out. Go home. The time clock is supposed to draw a clean line between an employee’s time and the employer’s time, then send the work side of that line to payroll. Funny how that line can get blurry when overtime gets expensive.
A few things before you punch in. A meeting, call, or “quick task” during lunch. Just finish these last few things after you punch out. Each detour may steal only 15 or 20 minutes. Stack them together every day, however, and those supposedly insignificant minutes can become serious unpaid wages and overtime pay. An employee is entitled to be paid for hours worked even when those hours never make it onto the timecard.
Patrick Wells Byrne claimed that happened at Goodwill South Florida TEP, LLC. Byrne was an hourly assistant operations manager scheduled from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., earning $27.40 per hour and $41.10 for overtime. He testified that before 8:00 he opened gates, loading docks, and bay doors, prepared the daily schedule, and loaded computers. He also claimed he worked through lunch and after 4:30 performing closing duties, handling emails and online listings, receiving late trucks, dealing with alarms, securing the building, and sometimes waiting with employees for late transportation.
Byrne estimated that he typically worked about 48 hours per week. At his $41.10 overtime rate, eight unpaid overtime hours equal $328.80 per week, about $1,424.80 per month, and $17,097.60 over 52 weeks. That is not pocket change. That is car-payment-and-mortgage-payment money.
Goodwill moved for summary judgment relying on its time and payroll records, written policies, and declarations from supervisors and coworkers. The district court excluded Byrne’s late-produced TOPS! text messages, found his declaration insufficient to create a genuine factual dispute, concluded that he had not shown unpaid overtime, and entered judgment for Goodwill.
In Byrne v. Goodwill S. Fla. Tep, LLC, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 27991, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated that judgment. The appellate court held that Byrne’s sworn testimony and declaration created genuine disputes over whether he worked unpaid overtime and whether Goodwill knew or should have known about it.
Legal Takeaway
Can My Employer Refuse to Pay Me for Work I Did Off the Clock?
No. An employer cannot avoid paying an employee merely because compensable work occurred outside the recorded shift. Under the FLSA, an employer must pay one-and-a-half times the regular rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a workweek. To recover unpaid overtime, the employee must prove both that the overtime work occurred and that the employer knew or should have known about it.
Byrne’s allegations show how wage theft can live in the margins of a workday. He described actual jobs that had to be done when the clock allegedly was not running: opening gates and loading docks, preparing schedules, working through lunch, handling emails, receiving late trucks, closing the warehouse, checking bathrooms, dealing with alarms, and making sure other employees had left.
Goodwill pointed to its time records. Byrne testified that those records captured what he was paid for, not everything he actually worked. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that he met his threshold burden with sworn evidence that he worked “before clocking in, after clocking out, and through lunch breaks.”
A punch is evidence of time. It is not a magic eraser for work.
That distinction should shape any wage and hour investigation. An attorney should ask what the employee actually did, when the work occurred, whether those hours pushed the employee over 40, and who knew the work was happening. The employer’s timecard is evidence. It is not automatically the answer.
Practical Tip: Identify recurring work that happened outside your recorded shift by task and approximate time. “I opened the building for 20 minutes before clocking in” gives a wage and hour lawyer something concrete to investigate; “I worked extra sometimes” gives the employer room to call the claim speculation.
Best Overtime Pay Lawyer Blogs on Point:
How Can I Prove Unpaid Overtime if My Timecard Is Wrong?
You do not need a perfect minute-by-minute reconstruction when your employer’s records are inaccurate. If wage records are inaccurate or inadequate, an employee may prove uncompensated work with evidence sufficient to show the amount and extent of that work as a “just and reasonable inference.” The burden then shifts to the employer to produce evidence of the precise amount worked or evidence defeating the reasonableness of that inference.
Byrne estimated that he averaged approximately 48 hours per week. Goodwill had plenty to attack that number with. Its records showed fewer than 40 hours in 45 weeks because of holidays, vacation, or sick time, while 56 other weeks reflected paid overtime. Goodwill also argued that Byrne knew how to report payroll problems because he used manual timesheets, processed other employees’ hours, and later complained about a final-paycheck issue.
Those facts could reduce Byrne’s recovery. They did not automatically erase his claim.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that Goodwill could challenge Byrne’s estimate, use its payroll records, and argue that some weeks involved fewer than 40 hours or already-paid overtime. But those arguments went to “the reasonableness and amount of recovery,” not whether his evidence created a triable issue. Byrne had identified tasks, approximate times, supervisors, and reasons he claimed the employer’s records missed the work.
An inaccurate timecard should not become the employer’s reward for keeping an inaccurate timecard.
A wage and hour lawyer investigating unpaid wages can work backward from recurring duties, schedules, lunch interruptions, communications, and approximate start and stop times. Precision helps. Perfection is not necessarily required.
Practical Tip: Reconstruct the workday by activity instead of beginning with a guess at total hours. Write down recurring pre-shift duties, interrupted lunches, and post-shift duties separately, then estimate the time each took. That gives an attorney a factual basis for calculating overtime pay and defending the estimate.
Best Wage Theft Attorney Blogs on Point:
Can My Employer Avoid Paying Time and a Half by Claiming It Did Not Know and Had a Policy Against Overtime Work?
Not necessarily. An employer may have an impressive written policy against off-the-clock work and still face an FLSA claim if supervisors knew or should have known that employees were actually performing unpaid overtime. Paper policy and workplace practice are not necessarily the same thing.
Goodwill had favorable paperwork. Byrne had received policies prohibiting off-the-clock work and directing employees how to report pay problems. Goodwill also produced an email from Director of Loss Prevention Adolfo Aragon telling Byrne that he should not work off the clock or respond to emails unless he was exempt.
Byrne testified to a very different practice. According to Byrne, Kevin Martin told him not to clock out after 4:30 without authorization but required unfinished work to be completed off the clock. Martin allegedly told him to clock out for lunch whether he took the break, stop clocking in before 8:00 even though morning duties remained, and stop clocking out after 4:30 because human resources and payroll were complaining about overtime.
If a jury believed that account, the policy did not solve Goodwill’s problem. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that Byrne’s testimony, “if credited, supports both elements of Byrne’s FLSA claim: unpaid overtime and employer knowledge.” It further held that a policy prohibiting off-the-clock work did not conclusively establish that the policy was actually followed.
What the employer actually required matters more than what its policy prohibited.
That is a critical wage and hour distinction. A lawyer evaluating possible wage theft should compare the written rule with what supervisors instructed employees to do, what managers observed, and whether the assigned work could realistically be completed during recorded hours.
Practical Tip: If a supervisor tells you to clock out but continue working, preserve the instruction with the surrounding facts: who gave it, when, what work remained, and whether the supervisor knew you were performing it. Those details can connect the unpaid wages directly to employer knowledge.
Best FLSA Law Firm Blogs on Point:
Can My Sworn Testimony Be Enough to Prove an Unpaid Overtime Claim?
Yes. An employee does not necessarily need a smoking-gun email, secret recording, or supporting coworker to get an unpaid overtime claim to a jury. Sworn testimony based on personal knowledge can itself create a genuine factual dispute.
That principle was central to the reversal. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that Rule 56 does not require sworn statements based on personal knowledge to be independently corroborated. More directly, the appellate court held that a judge “may not disregard sworn testimony merely because it is self-serving or uncorroborated.”
There is a boundary. Signing a declaration does not turn speculation into evidence. The testimony must be based on personal knowledge, contain admissible facts, and come from a person competent to testify about them. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that testimony may still be rejected when it is “conclusory, speculative, inadmissible, or blatantly contradicted.”
Goodwill did have substantial evidence contradicting Byrne. One particularly concrete example hurt part of his account: Byrne claimed Javier Fernandez continued the off-the-clock instructions during an April 1, 2024 meeting, while Fernandez produced a declaration and Airbnb records showing he was in Georgia from March 31 through April 4. The appellate court held that evidence undermined the alleged April 1 meeting, but not Byrne’s earlier allegations involving Martin. A weakness in one part of the story did not automatically destroy the rest of it.
Ultimately, the appellate court held that Goodwill had offered “substantial contrary evidence,” but resolving the conflict required weighing competing evidence and making credibility determinations. “Under Rule 56, that is the jury’s role.”
Two competing stories do not give the judge permission to pick the winner before trial.
For an employee pursuing overtime pay, that rule can determine whether a case ever reaches a jury. A strong attorney develops firsthand testimony with enough detail to survive an employer’s attempt to characterize the claim as nothing more than accusation or guesswork.
Practical Tip: Separate what you personally saw, heard, and did from what you assume happened. Specific firsthand facts give a lawyer admissible evidence to develop and give the employer less room to attack an overtime claim as speculation.
Best Wage and Hour Attorney Blogs on Point:
How Can an Overtime Lawyer Help Me Recover Unpaid Wages?
An experienced overtime lawyer does not begin and end an investigation with whatever appears in the payroll system. A strong wage and hour lawyer reconstructs the actual workday, tests the time records against the employee’s duties, identifies who knew the work was occurring, calculates potential unpaid wages, and develops evidence capable of surviving an employer’s challenge. In a wage theft case, the difference between “I worked extra” and detailed, admissible proof can be the difference between dismissal and a jury trial.
Spitz, The Employee’s Law Firm, represents employees, not employers. Spitz is one of the largest law firms in the United States dedicated to employee rights, giving our attorneys the resources to investigate serious wage and hour claims and the trial experience to litigate them when an employer refuses to pay. We also understand that missing overtime pay is not an abstract legal problem when it represents money that should have gone toward a mortgage, car payment, groceries, or family expenses. Spitz offers a free initial consultation and a No Fee Guarantee. If you believe you were required to work off the clock, denied overtime, or deprived of other wages, talk with a Spitz lawyer about the evidence and what options may be available.
Frequently Asked Questions About Unpaid Overtime
Yes. If an employee performs work during an unpaid lunch period, that time can count as hours worked. If the additional time pushes the employee beyond 40 hours in a workweek, it can result in overtime pay.
Can I be owed unpaid overtime even if I received overtime pay on some paychecks?
Yes. Being paid overtime for some hours does not establish that the employer recorded and paid every overtime hour worked. An employee may still have unpaid wages if additional compensable work was omitted from the records.
Does work I perform before my scheduled shift count toward overtime?
It can. Required work performed before clocking in can count as working time and may contribute to overtime when total hours exceed 40 in a workweek.
Does work I perform after clocking out count toward overtime?
It can. Completing assignments, handling work communications, closing a workplace, or performing other required duties after clocking out may count toward hours worked and result in unpaid overtime.
Do I need to know the exact number of unpaid overtime hours before talking to a wage and hour lawyer?
No. Inaccurate or incomplete employer records may make an exact calculation impossible at the outset. A wage and hour lawyer can evaluate schedules, recurring duties, approximate work times, communications, and other evidence to determine whether an employee may have an FLSA claim for unpaid wages.
Employment Lawyer Disclaimer
This employee’s rights and wage and hour blog provides general information about overtime, wage theft, unpaid wages, overtime pay, employee rights, and the FLSA and should not be taken or relied upon as legal advice for any specific situation. Wage claims depend on the particular facts, evidence, applicable law, and deadlines involved. Employees with questions about unpaid work or other compensation issues should consult a qualified employment lawyer, wage and hour lawyer, or attorney for advice concerning their individual circumstances. No promise or guarantee is made concerning any result. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. This blog is a legal advertisement. Reading this blog, visiting the Spitz website, or communicating with Spitz does not create an attorney-client relationship, and no attorney-client relationship exists unless and until Spitz agrees to representation.