Former West Brandywine Township Narcotics Officer Sues Over Alleged Off-the-Clock Work

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A former narcotics officer has filed suit in Pennsylvania against West Brandywine Township Municipal Authority and the township police department’s Acting Officer in Charge over claims that he is owed unpaid wages for off-the-clock time spent donning and doffing his uniform and equipment. The man further argues that the individual officer defendant retaliated against him for complaining of unpaid wages and hindering the acting officer’s allegedly unlawful activities.

The plaintiff says he has worked for the West Brandywine Township police department for 12 years and, during the time frame relevant to this lawsuit, held the position of a narcotics officer. According to the case, the department executed a new policy in June 2013 that required officers to be in uniform 10 minutes before their shifts began.

The plaintiff claims he began noticing in early 2018 that although he clocked in before dressing for his shift, his time entries always reflected the start time of his shift rather than the time he actually clocked in. Similarly, the case alleges, the man’s recorded end-times always matched his shift end-times rather than the true time he clocked out after changing out of his uniform.

The plaintiff claims he complained about the alleged off-the-clock work to the Acting Officer in Charge, who the suit says moved into the position after the town’s former police chief stepped down. Despite his complaints, the plaintiff says the time-clock manipulation continued.

The lawsuit then notes that the plaintiff, as president of the local Fraternal Order Police (FOP) union, chastised the acting officer defendant for contributing more than the allowable amount to his pension and attempting to use FOP money to pay his union dues when he was not an executive member. The suit claims the man retaliated against the plaintiff for his actions, as well as for his unpaid wage complaints, by disciplining him more than 40 times, demoting him to a traffic officer, and replacing him with a “significantly less experienced” individual.