Tijerina v. City of Tyler

The Court holds that cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants were required by statute until 1987 to pay certain fire department employees overtime when they were not actually working but were on call. The Court defines “on call” to include time when employees were free to go about their affairs as long as they could be contacted by radio or telephone and could come to a fire scene within a reasonable time, allowing for preparation and travel. An hour after being summoned, more or less, was a reasonable response time for on call employees, according to the uncontro-verted testimony in this…