Full opinion text
HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge: Plaintiffs-Appellants alleged that they worked more than forty hours a week, and that their employer, Defendant-Appellee Coil Tubing Services, L.L.C. (“CTS”), wrongfully denied them overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The district court held, among other things, that the Motor Carrier Act (“MCA”) exempted certain CTS employees from the overtime-pay requirements of the FLSA based, in part, on the percentage of safety-affecting interstate activities these employees engaged in company-wide. Undertaking a limited interlocutory review, we AFFIRM. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS CTS services oil wells. From 2005 to 2008, the company divided itself into six geographic “districts.” The districts operated under a single U.S. Department of Transportation (“DOT”) number, and were not legal entities distinct from CTS. The districts sometimes borrowed personnel and equipment from each other. They also sometimes solicited and accepted projects outside their respective geographic boundaries. Plaintiffs worked in four of the districts: Alice, Texas; Angleton, Texas; Bridgeport, Texas; and Broussard, Louisiana. Their positions included: Equipment Operator (“EO”), Service Technician I (“STI”), Service Technician II (“ST-II”), Service Supervisor Trainee (“SST”), Service Supervisor (“SS”), Service Coordinator (“SC”), and Field Engineer I (“FE-I”). Plaintiffs’ duties varied by position. SCs coordinated projects. FE-Is recorded the pressure of coil tubing units at well sites. EOs, ST-Is, ST-IIs, SSTs, and SSs helped transport materials to project sites. Plaintiffs initiated this suit for overtime pay in November 2008. “To efficiently manage [the] case,” the district court ordered the parties to conduct discovery on a cross-section of fourteen Plaintiffs, known as the “Bellwether group.” On completion of discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment on whether exemptions to the FLSA, and, in particular, an MCA exemption allowing certain employers not to pay overtime to employees engaged in safety-affecting interstate activities, applied to Plaintiffs. The district court initially denied, in part, summary judgment for CTS based, in part, on a district-by-district analysis of the employees’ interstate activities. The district court explained: that EOs, ST-Is, ST-IIs, SSTs, and SSs, but not FE-Is and SCs, had similar-enough job duties to be grouped together as “Field Service Employees,” or “FSEs”; that FSEs who worked on land-based, but not offshore, wells engaged in activities affecting motor vehicle safety; and that, measuring interstate activities by district, only land-based FSEs in certain districts had a reasonable expectation of engaging in sufficient interstate activities. The parties filed motions for reconsideration. Observing that “[njeither party had argued for a district-by-district analysis,” the district court granted CTS’ motion, and vacated its initial order. The district court then granted, in part, summary judgment for CTS, using a company-wide analysis to find that the MCA exemption applied to many of the Plaintiffs. In a sixty-three page opinion issued January 11, 2012, the district court used the same individualized analysis to establish the class of FSEs, and to determine that only FSEs who worked on land-based wells engaged in activities affecting motor vehicle safety. The district court then reasoned that a company-wide analysis of these employees’ interstate activities was appropriate because “[tjhere is insufficient evidence or legal authority ... to treat the districts separately.” Measuring the interstate activities of land-based FSEs on a company-wide basis, the district court found: that 7 percent of projects required these employees to drive across state lines; that such trips were assigned indiscriminately; and that, therefore, land-based FSEs had a “reasonable expectation” that they “could be assigned to drive interstate.” The district court extended its rulings to all Plaintiffs, and not just those in the Bellwether group. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ request for permission to file an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), explaining that its rulings, “particularly those involving application of the [MCA exemption], involve controlling questions of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of option,” and that “an immediate appeal from those rulings is likely to materially advance the ultimate termination of this litigation.” This court then granted Appellants’ motion for leave to appeal. STANDARD OF REVIEW “Although we ordinarily review a district court’s summary judgment ruling de novo, our appellate jurisdiction under [28 U.S.C.] § 1292(b) extends only to controlling questions of law, thus, we review only the issue of law certified for appeal.” Tanks v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 417 F.3d 456, 461 (5th Cir.2005). The district court certified for interlocutory appeal the rulings in its January 11, 2012 order, “particularly those involving application of the [MCA exemption].” We therefore limit our review to these rulings, particularly whether the MCA exemption applies. THE MCA EXEMPTION Section 207 of the FLSA requires an employer to pay overtime compensation to any employee working more than forty hours in a workweek. See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1); Singer v. City of Waco, 324 F.3d 813, 818 (5th Cir.2003). “Exemptions under the FLSA are construed narrowly against the employer, and the employer bears the burden to establish a claimed exemption.” Songer v. Dillon Res., Inc., 618 F.3d 467, 471 (5th Cir.2010). At issue on appeal is the MCA exemption, “which states that the FLSA’s overtime requirement ‘shall not apply ... to ... any employee with respect to whom the Secretary of Transportation has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service pursuant to the provisions of section 31502 of Title 49' of the MCA.’ ” Id. (alterations in original) (quoting 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(1)). Section 31502, in turn, provides that the DOT “may prescribe requirements for ... qualifications and maximum hours of service of employees of, and standards of equipment of, a motor private carrier, when needed to promote safety of operation.” 49 U.S.C. § 31502(b)(2). The DOT may establish these requirements for employees who (1) Are employed by carriers whose transportation of passengers or property by motor vehicle is subject to his jurisdiction under section 204 of the [MCA] ... and (2) engage in activities of a character directly affecting the safety of operation of motor vehicles in the transportation on the public highways of passengers or property in interstate or foreign commerce within the meaning of the [MCA], 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(a); see Songer, 618 F.3d at 472. “For the motor carrier exemption to apply ... [the employees] must meet both of these requirements.” Barefoot v. Mid-Am. Dairymen, Inc., No. 93-1684, 1994 WL 57686, at *2 (5th Cir. Feb. 18, 1994) (per curiam) (unpublished). To satisfy the first requirement— whether the employer is “subject to [the DOT’s] jurisdiction,” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(a) — an employer “must be engaged in interstate commerce.” Songer, 618 F.3d at 472. The MCA defines interstate commerce as commerce “between a place in ... a State and a place in another State.” 49 U.S.C. § 13501(1)(A). However, this definition “has not been applied literally by the courts. In fact, we have defined it as the actual transport of goods across state lines or the intrastate transport of goods in the flow of interstate commerce.” Songer, 618 F.3d at 472 (internal quotation marks omitted). To satisfy the second requirement — whether the employees “engage in activities of a character directly affecting the safety of operation of motor vehicles ... in interstate ... commerce,” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(a) — “neither the name given to his position nor that given to the work that he does is controlling.” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(b)(2) (citing Pyramid Motor Freight Corp. v. Ispass, 330 U.S. 695, 707, 67 S.Ct. 954, 91 L.Ed. 1184 (1947)). Rather, “what is controlling is the character of the activities involved in the performance of [the employee’s] job.” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(b)(2); see Levinson v. Spector Motor Serv., 330 U.S. 649, 674-75, 67 S.Ct. 931, 91 L.Ed. 1158 (1947) (observing that “[i]t is the character of the activities rather than the proportion of either the employee’s time or of his activities” that controls). As a “general rule,” if the bona fide duties of the job performed by the employee are in fact such that he is (or, in the case of a member of a group of drivers, driver’s helpers, loaders, or mechanics employed by a common carrier and engaged in safety-affecting occupations, that he is likely to be) called upon in the ordinary course of his work to perform, either regularly or from time to time, safety-affecting activities ... he comes within the exemption in all workweeks when he is employed at such job.... Where this is the case, the rule applies regardless of the proportion of the employee’s time or of his activities which is actually devoted to such safety-affecting work in the particular workweek, and the exemption will be applicable even in a workweek when the employee happens to perform no work directly affecting “safety of operation.” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(b)(3); see Songer, 618 F.3d at 474. “On the other hand, where the continuing duties of the employee’s job have no substantial direct effect on such safety of operation or where such safety-affecting activities are so trivial, casual, and insignificant as to be de minimis, the exemption will not apply to [the employee] in any workweek so long as there is no change in his duties.” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(b)(3) (citing Pyramid, 330 U.S. at 707-08, 67 S.Ct. 954). To measure whether employees are “likely to be ... called upon in the ordinary course of [their] work to perform ... safety-affecting activities” that are interstate in nature, 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(b)(3), we look to whether the employees “could reasonably have been expected to [engage] in interstate commerce consistent with their job duties.” Songer, 618 F.3d at 476 (finding that a reasonable expectation arose when about 2.75 percent of “loads were transported across state lines”); see Morris v. McComb, 332 U.S. 422, 433-34, 68 S.Ct. 131, 92 L.Ed. 44 (1947) (applying the MCA exemption to drivers who spent about 4 percent of their time transporting goods in interstate commerce); Starrett v. Bruce, 391 F.2d 320, 323-24 (10th Cir.1968) (applying the MCA exemption to a driver, even though the driver’s employer derived no income from interstate transport, because the employer solicited interstate business and would have assigned the driver to interstate trips if the employer had obtained such business). The parties do not dispute that CTS satisfies the first requirement&emdash;being “subject to [the DOT’s] jurisdiction,” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(a)&emdash;because it is a motor carrier that engages in interstate com- merce. Rather, the parties dispute the second requirement: whether the FSEs engaged in activities that affected “the safety of operations of motor vehicles in the transportation on the public highways of passengers or property in interstate or foreign commerce.” 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(a). Within the framework of this second re- quirement, the parties do not contest that an individualized analysis is appropriate to determine whether Appellants have simi- lar-enough duties to belong to the class of employees that engages in safety-affecting activities. The parties only contest wheth- er, in measuring the interstate activities of this class of employees, an “employee-by- employee,” “district-by-district,” or “company-wide” analysis is appropriate. We hold that a company-wide analysis is appropriate in this case because this court’s precedent effectively forecloses an employee-by-employee analysis, and the facts of this case, and arguments advanced by the parties, do not support a district- by-district analysis. This court’s Songer decision declined to adopt an employee-by-employee analysis. adopt an employee-by-employee analysis. In Songer, truck drivers sought overtime under the FLSA. 618 F.3d at 468. The drivers argued that “[s]imply being an interstate driver for a commercial carrier is not enough ... a driver must be personally engaged in interstate transportation to be exempt.” A unanimous panel declined to adopt this argument, observing that the “application of the MCA exemption to an employee ‘depends ... on the class of work involved in the employee’s job.’” Songer, 618 F.3d at 472 (emphasis added) (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(a)). The panel first observed that “Plaintiffs, as truck drivers subject to DOT requirements, are employed in positions that affect the operational safety of motor vehicles.” Songer, 618 F.3d at 473 (internal quotation marks omitted). Then, evaluating these drivers as a class, the panel found: that about 2.75 percent of the drivers’ trips were interstate; that the drivers’ employer indiscriminately assigned such trips; and that, therefore, the drivers “could reasonably have been expected to drive in interstate commerce consistent with their job duties.” See id. at 475-76. This is Son-ger ’s binding analysis: Plaintiffs assert that the Secretary’s jurisdiction only applies to transportation across state lines, and therefore that Defendants must demonstrate that each driver personally transported property by motor vehicle across state lines. But the Supreme Court held in Morris that the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the predecessor to the DOT, had jurisdiction to regulate all of defendant carrier’s drivers, even though two of the 42 drivers had not engaged in interstate trips during the relevant period, and that the drivers were not entitled to overtime under the FLSA. Morris, 332 U.S. at 434-36, 68 S.Ct. 131. In that case, the carrier’s few interstate trips (4% of all trips during the relevant period) were distributed indiscriminately to all drivers. Id. at 433, 68 S.Ct. 131. The Supreme Court noted that, in practical terms, the safety concerns facing a carrier who sent every driver on an interstate trip would be the same if the carrier sent only some or most of its drivers on interstate trips. See id. at 434, 68 S.Ct. 131. Id. at 474. The district court in this case explicitly and closely adhered to our Songer decision’s reasonable expectation analysis. The district court created a chart that listed each member of the Bellwether group, and included the member’s title, district, and start and end dates. Then the district court looked to each member’s job duties to find that, notwithstanding their different positions, members working as EOs, ST-Is, ST-IIs, SSTs, and SSs had sufficiently similar duties to belong to a class of employees known as FSEs. Tellingly, the district court delimited this class by excluding FE-Is and SCs because there was “insufficient evidence about whether the FE-Is or the SCs engaged in safety-affecting transportation duties and whether there was a reasonable expectation that their work would affect the safety of interstate transportation.” The district court further delimited this class by excluding FSEs who worked on offshore projects because “the factual record is conflicting and there remain open legal issues” as to whether offshore FSEs engaged in safety-affecting transportation activities affecting interstate commerce. The district court, after this extensive individualized methodology, then found: that 7 percent of projects company-wide required this class of employees to cross state lines; that CTS assigned such interstate trips indiscriminately; and that, therefore, these employees had a “reasonable expectation” that they “could be assigned to drive interstate.” Given that this analysis adheres to the reasonable expectation approach of Songer, we cannot say that, after using an individualized analysis to form the class of employees known as land-based FSEs, the district court erred by not repeating the individualized analysis to measure the interstate activity of each member of the class. Relevant other Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court decisions are consistent with Songer. For example, in Barefoot, a unanimous panel found that twenty-six truck drivers engaged in interstate commerce even though “the drivers conceded that, among the twenty-six of them,” only about “twenty trips were made across state lines.” See 1994 WL 57686, at *3. Likewise, in Morris, the Supreme Court found that forty-three drivers, who, as a group, devoted “about 4% of their time and effort ... to services in interstate commerce,” engaged in interstate commerce even though two of the drivers did not take interstate trips. 332 U.S. at 432-34, 68 5.Ct. 131. By contrast, the circuit court cases cited by Appellants in support of an employee-by-employee analysis are distinguishable. Appellants argue that, by using “singular nouns and pronouns,” the relevant statutes and regulations, including 29 U.S.C. §§ 207(a), 213(b) and 29 C.F.R. § 782.2, envision an employee-by-employee analysis. Read in context, however, the use of singular terms suggests only that a district court should use an individual analysis to determine if an employee belongs to a particular “class.” See, e.g., 29 C.F.R. § 782.2 (observing the exemption depends on “the class of work involved in the employee’s job” and “extends to those classes of employees” who engage in safety-affective activities) (emphases added). As discussed above, by finding that certain employees had similar-enough duties to belong to a class of employees known as FSEs, and then by limiting this class, the district court used such an analysis. Because Songer forecloses an employee-by-employee analysis, and because Appellants do not provide a persuasive reason to depart from Songer, the question narrows to whether the district should have used a district-by-district or company-wide analysis to measure the interstate activities of land-based FSEs. Given the arguments advanced by the parties, and the facts of the case, a company-wide analysis was appropriate. The FLSA provides that overtime-pay requirements and exemptions apply only to an “employer.” See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1). The district court found that CTS “was Plaintiffs’ only ‘employer’ during the relevant time periods; Plaintiffs were not employed by the various districts.” Appellants did not argue in district court that the districts were their employers, and they do not challenge on appeal the finding that CTS “was [their] only ‘employer.’ ” Appellants therefore have waived any argument to the contrary. See F.D.I.C. v. Mijalis, 15 F.3d 1314, 1326-27 (5th Cir.1994). By waiving this textual argument, Appellants’ opposition to a company-wide analysis reduces to their contention that “the percentages of interstate travel for [some districts] tell courts nothing about the reasonable expectation of a worker dispatched from [other districts].” However, Songer looks at the reasonable expectations of the employees as a class, even if, in doing so, the effect is to apply the MCA exemption to employees who rarely, or never, engage in interstate commerce. See 618 F.3d at 472-76. Songer does not instruct us to subdivide a class of employees by geography, and the facts of this case do not support such an artificial division. For example, the districts: operated under a single DOT number; were not independent legal entities; borrowed personnel and equipment from each other; and solicited and accepted projects outside their geographic areas. Accordingly, as the district court found, “[t]here is insufficient evidence or legal authority ... to treat the districts separately instead of conducting the MCA Exemption analysis based on CTS as a single ‘employer.’” In sum, the district court did not err in using a company-wide analysis because this court’s precedent effectively precludes an employee-by-employee analysis, and because neither the parties’ arguments, nor the relevant facts, support a district-by-district analysis. CONCLUSION Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s application of the MCA exemption. . The district court denied the parties’ summary judgment motions relating to the FE-Is and SCs on the basis that there was a genuine issue of fact as to whether the MCA exemp-lion applied to employees holding these positions. . Section 207(a)(1) provides in full: Except as otherwise provided in this section, no employer shall employ any of his employees who in any workweek is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, or is employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he is employed. . We note also the district court's fact-intensive assessment even of those offshore employees as to whether they were, like Plaintiff Broussard, prohibited from driving. . Echoing Songer, the district court emphasized that "[tjhese employees have similar job duties, were or could have been called upon to drive in interstate commerce during their employment, and receive project assignments that changed often. Any driver could have been assigned to an interstate project at any time,” and concluded that "the evidence establishes that, objectively, there was a reasonable expectation that any CTS Field Service Employee could be assigned to drive interstate.” . For example, in Goldberg v. Faber Indus., Inc., the Seventh Circuit declined to apply the MCA exemption to drivers based, in part, on the fact that the drivers were assigned to “designated” intrastate routes. 291 F.2d 232, 234 (7th Cir.1961). By contrast, in this case, interstate routes were assigned indiscriminately. Moreover, the Seventh Circuit in Goldberg positively applied Morris, which, as noted already, involved a group that had two non-interstate drivers. See 291 F.2d at 235. . Appellants also maintain that CTS is judicially estopped from arguing for a company-wide analysis because CTS argued for an employee-by-employee analysis in Yaklin v. W-H Energy Servs., Inc., No. C-07-422, 2008 WL 1989795, át *1 (S.D.Tex. May 2, 2008) (unpublished). To the extent that this estoppel argument is within the scope of our limited interlocutory review, see Tanks, 417 F.3d at 461, it is unpersuasive. Although "judicial estoppel is not governed by inflexible prerequisites,” its application generally requires, among other things, that “a court accepted the prior position.” Love v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 677 F.3d 258, 261 (5th Cir.2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Even if CTS did argue for an employee-by-employee analysis in Yaklin, Appellants do not argue, and the Yaklin opinion does not support, that the Yak-lin court accepted CTS' argument. See 2008 WL 1989795, at *3. . The FLSA defines an "employer” to "include[] any person" — that is, "an individual, partnership, association, corporation, business trust, legal representative, or any organized group of persons," 29 U.S.C. § 203(a).— "acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee.” 29 U.S.C. § 203(d). Because we find that waiver applies, we decline to address whether the districts were "employers” under this definition. . With the highest respect, we are unconvinced by the dissenting opinion’s insistence that precedent “prohibits” courts from determining a particular employee’s reasonable expectation by reference to a class of similarly situated employees. Post, at 296. Indeed, the dissent itself uses this "prohibited” mode of analysis by classifying employees by districts. In what it deems "The Proper Analysis,” the dissent does not "make a determination vel non for each plaintiff-employee,” but instead divides up the plaintiffs by district: “the vast majority of jobs handled by the Alice, Angleton, Bridgeport, and Broussard districts were purely intrastate jobs.” Post, at 305, 305. As evidence of the reasonable expectation of a particular employee, the dissent looks to the percentage of each district’s jobs that were interstate: "in Alice and Bridgeport, less than one percent of the jobs handled by those districts during the period recorded were interstate.” Post, at 305. The dissent concludes its district-by-district analysis: “Based on this evidence, a reasonable factfin-der could determine that the likelihood of these field service employees in the Alice, Angleton, Bridgeport, and Broussard districts driving interstate is so minimal and remote, they cannot be 'reasonably expected' to be 'called upon in the ordinary course of [their] work to [drive interstate].’ ” Post, at 306 (quoting Songer, 618 F.3d at 474). The dissent may disagree with our choice of classification, preferring a district-by-district class to company-wide class, but it is still utilizing classifications in its analysis. The dissent further does not convincingly explain how its proposed individualized methodology coincides with Songer or Morris. As we explained, Morris found jurisdiction to regulate "all of defendant carrier’s drivers, even though two of the 42 drivers had not engaged in interstate trips.” Songer, 618 F.3d 467. If Morris applied an "individualized” assessment of the two employees that had not engaged in interstate trips, it could not have found that these employees had a reasonable expectation of engaging in interstate trips: they had not done so before. It is only by reference to other employees' experience that Monis’s conclusion makes sense. The dissent revealingly explains that Songer "made the common sense observation that, because of company policies that were factually common to all employees {i.e., the indiscriminate assignment of interstate trips), each and every employee, all of whom had the same likelihood of driving interstate, was reasonably likely to drive interstate.” Post, at 302. What the dissent frames as a "common sense observation” we call a class-based analysis; there is a minimal semantic gap between our views. Moreover, the district court made this exact "common sense observation” when it found that "[t]hese employees have similar job duties, were or could have been called upon to drive in interstate commerce during their employment, and receive project assignments that changed often. Any driver could have been assigned to an interstate project at any time.” Accordingly, both of our opinions use classifications to determine whether a particular employee has a reasonable expectation. We simply part ways over the relevant class of comparison, and the factual conclusion reached by the district court, "that the evidence establishes that, objectively, there was a reasonable expectation that any CTS Field Service Employee could be assigned to drive interstate.” . CTS also argues that the district court erred by extending its January 11, 2012 rulings to all Plaintiffs, and not just the Bellwether group. Even if this argument is within the scope of our limited interlocutory review, see Tanks, 417 F.3d at 461, it is unpersuasive. Appellants rely on an Eleventh Circuit case, Hogan v. Allstate Insurance Co., for the proposition that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c) requires that "a minimum 10-day notice ... must be explicitly given to all plaintiffs,” and not just "test plaintiffs.” 361 F.3d 621, 628 (11th Cir.2004) (per curiam). However, Rule 56 was amended in 2010-subsequent to the Hogan decision, but before the district court’s January 11, 2012 rulings-to remove the referenced ten-day notice requirement. See Atkins v. Salazar, 677 F.3d 667, 678 n. 15 (5th Cir.2011) (per curiam). Further, CTS requested that the district court’s rulings apply to all plaintiffs in a March 2011 filing, and then did so again in its motion for reconsideration. As a result, attorneys for the non-Bellwether Plaintiffs, who also represented the Bellwether Plaintiffs, had "a full opportunity to argue against” the application of the district court's rulings to all Plaintiffs. See Atkins, 677 F.3d at 681.
JAMES L. DENNIS, Circuit Judge, dissenting: I respectfully dissent because the district court and the majority of this court have departed from controlling Supreme Court and circuit precedent and have misinterpreted and misapplied Department of Labor (“DOL”) regulation 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(a) and this court’s decision in Songer v. Dillon Resources, Inc., 618 F.3d 467 (5th Cir.2010), to except more than a hundred employees from overtime wage protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The issue is whether the Motor Carrier Act (“MCA”) exemption to the FLSA excepts the oil-well-service plaintiffs-employees here from overtime protection because their individual job activities can conceivably affect the safety of interstate transportation. If an employee is subject to the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation (“DOT”) under the MCA to regulate the qualifications and maximum hours of service of the employee, then that employee loses the FLSA’s protection over overtime pay. An employee is subject to such MCA jurisdiction only, inter alia, if he is reasonably likely to carry out job duties affecting the safety of interstate transportation (or international transportation, although such is not involved in this case). In Pyramid Motor Freight Corp. v. Ispass, 330 U.S. 695, 67 S.Ct. 954, 91 L.Ed. 1184 (1947), the Supreme Court held that, when the MCA exemption is invoked as a defense in an FLSA action for overtime pay, (1) the district court must “determine whether or not the activities of each [employee]” are reasonably likely to affect the safety of interstate transportation and that (2) the court may declare exempt from overtime wage protection only “those [employees] who are engaged in such activities.” Id. at 707-08, 67 S.Ct. 954 (emphasis added). Later that same year, in Morris v. McComb, 332 U.S. 422, 68 S.Ct. 131, 92 L.Ed. 44 (1947), the Court reaffirmed that, in “an action to recover overtime compensation for individual employees,” it is “necessary to determine” “the extent to which” an employee seeking overtime pay carried out activities reasonably likely to affect the safety of interstate transportation. Id. at 430, 68 S.Ct. 131. Thus, under the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, MCA jurisdiction turns on the individual job circumstances of “each” employee seeking overtime pay. Pyramid Motor Freight Corp., 330 U.S. at 707, 67 S.Ct. 954. An employee loses the FLSA’s protection over overtime pay under the MCA exemption only if the employee, based on the circumstances of his job, is reasonably likely to carry out activities affecting the safety of interstate transportation operations. See also Mitchell v. C. & P. Shoe Corp., 286 F.2d 109, 114 (5th Cir.1960) (holding that MCA jurisdiction turns on the “activities of the particular employee, rather than the employer”); accord Opelika Royal Crown Bottling Co. v. Goldberg, 299 F.2d 37, 42-43 (5th Cir.1962). The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence requiring individual analysis of each employee’s actual job circumstances for purposes of the MCA exemption has not been overruled or modified. Here, however, the district court and the majority have failed to focus on the circumstances of each employee’s actual job, as required by law, to determine whether that employee is exempted from overtime wage protection. Instead, they have erroneously concluded that, when a district court deems multiple employees’ job duties and assignments to be, in the court’s opinion, “sufficiently similar,” the court may lump all of the employees together in a single “group” (the district court’s word) or “class” (the majority’s word) so as to determine on a “company-wide basis” the applicability of the MCA exemption “to that group as a whole.” 846 F.Supp.2d 678, 694-95; ante, at 285-86. According to the district court, this “group”-based analysis that is conducted on a “company-wide basis” allows the court to look at the job activities of the national company’s Wyoming employees, who are not parties to this litigation seeking overtime pay, and to declare that, based on their activities, the Texas and Louisiana employees in this case are exempted from overtime wages. The district court recognized that, factually, the Wyoming employees are distinct from the Texas and Louisiana employees. Specifically, the district court recognized that, as a matter of fact, the Wyoming employees are very likely to affect the safety of interstate transportation in the course of their jobs and the Texas and the Louisiana employees are not. Nevertheless, the district court concluded that, as a result of “company-wide,” “group-based” analysis, the Wyoming employees, who are not seeking overtime wages in this case, and the Texas and Louisiana employees, who are, should all be lumped together and should all be denied overtime wage protection despite their factual differences. The majority of this court now affirms. Thus, in granting and affirming summary judgment for Coil Tubing Services, the employer here, my colleagues mistakenly have failed to require the employer to carry its heavy burden under its affirmative MCA exemption defense to show, on an individual basis, that each employee’s job activities demonstrate that he is exempt from FLSA overtime protection. As support for this “group”- or “class”-based analysis that is conducted on a “company-wide basis,” the district court and majority point to the DOL’s § 782 regulations and this court’s recent Songer decision. The district court and the majority, unfortunately, have misread these sources. The DOL’s § 782 regulations and Songer did not abrogate, nor could they have abrogated, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence requiring individual analysis of each employee’s job circumstances. Because the district court’s legal errors skewed and undermined its entire decision, its summary judgment should have been reversed rather than affirmed. I. Introduction Under the FLSA, employers are generally prohibited from “employ[ing] any of [their] employees” “for a workweek longer than forty hours unless such employee receives [time-and-a-half compensation for the overtime hours].” 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1). Under the MCA exemption to the FLSA, that entitlement to overtime pay “shall not apply with respect to” “any employee with respect to whom the Secretary of Transportation [that is, the DOT] has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service pursuant to the provisions of section 31502 of Title 49 [that is, the MCA].” Id. § 213(b)(1). Thus, under the FLSA, an employee is entitled to overtime pay unless the employee falls within the scope of the DOT’s regulatory jurisdiction under the MCA or is otherwise exempt from the FLSA for reasons not involved in this case. MCA jurisdiction (that is, the jurisdiction of the DOT under the MCA to establish the qualifications and maximum hours of service of employees) has three elements. First, under 49 U.S.C. § 31502(b), the DOT may regulate the qualifications and maximum hours of service of only those workers who are employed by either a “motor carrier” or a “motor private carrier.” A “motor carrier” is “a person providing motor vehicle transportation for compensation.” Id. § 13102(14). A “motor private carrier” is generally a person who transports his own property “for sale, lease, rent, or bailment or to further a commercial enterprise.” Id. § 13102(15). Second, the DOT’S jurisdiction “is limited to those employees whose activities affect the safety of [the transportation] operation,” and the DOT “has no jurisdiction to regulate the qualifications or hours of service of any others.” United States v. Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 310 U.S. 534, 553, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 84 L.Ed. 1345 (1940). To determine whether an employee’s job activities affect the safety of the transportation operation, the courts have clarified the relevant inquiry to be whether “the employee’s job duties are such that he is (or is likely to be) called upon in the ordinary course of his work to perform safety-affecting activities.” E.g., Songer, 618 F.3d at 474 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 782.2(b)(3)) (alteration omitted). Put another way, the question is whether the employee “can be reasonably expected” to engage in activities that affect the safety of transportation. Id. If the likelihood of engaging in safety-affecting activities is too remote and improbable, then the employee will not fall under MCA jurisdiction. Coleman v. Jiffy June Farms, Inc., 324 F.Supp. 664, 670 (S.D.Ala.1970), aff'd, 458 F.2d 1139 (5th Cir.1971); Kimball v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 504 F.Supp. 544, 548 (E.D.Tex.1980); Yaklin v. W-H Energy Servs., Inc., No. 07-CV-422, 2008 WL 4692419, at *6 (S.D.Tex. Oct. 22, 2008). Third, the DOT’s jurisdiction reaches only (1) international transportation, ie., transportation that crosses the national border, (2) interstate transportation, ie., transportation that crosses state borders, or (3) intrastate transportation of goods in the flow of interstate commerce. 49 U.S.C. §§ 31502(a), 13501; Songer, 618 F.3d at 472. Generally speaking, there must be an international or interstate nexus of some sort, as the DOT’S jurisdiction does not reach purely intrastate transportation. E.g., Kline v. Wirtz, 373 F.2d 281, 282 (5th Cir.1967); Walling v. Comet Carriers, 151 F.2d 107, 110 (2d Cir.1945). In sum then, under the MCA, the DOT may regulate the qualifications and maximum hours of service only for (1) employees of a “motor carrier” or “motor private carrier” (2) whose activities affect the safety of transportation, (3) and that transportation has an international or interstate nexus. Here, there is no question of the first two elements. First, there is no question that Coil Tubing Services, an oil-well-service company, requires its employees in the course of their jobs to transport the company’s property, including chemicals, tools, and coil tubing equipment, between the company’s district offices and the job-sites, the customers’ wells, and therefore qualifies as a “motor private carrier” under the statute. See Sinclair v. Beacon Gasoline Co., 447 F.Supp. 5, 10 (W.D.La.1976), aff'd, 571 F.2d 978 (5th Cir.1978) (holding that “a natural gas well servicing company whose drivers carry tools and equipment in company-furnished pickup trucks ... is private carrier of property by motor vehicle”). Second, although the principal job of the employees here is to service the customers’ oil wells and that, by itself, does not have an affect on the safety of transportation, the employees also transport Coil Tubing Services’s property, i.e., the equipment, etc., to the jobsite via motor vehicle, and “[i]t is obvious that one who drives a vehicle” “directly affects the safety of such operations as long as he is driving.” Crooker v. Sexton Motors, Inc., 469 F.2d 206, 209 (1st Cir.1972); see also Songer, 618 F.3d at 473. Thus, there is no question that, as the employees here are required to drive motor vehicles, they affect the safety of transportation when doing so. The third requirement for MCA jurisdiction is the interstate nexus, i.e., that the employee’s job activities are such that the employee is reasonably likely to affect the safety of interstate, not merely intrastate, transportation. Whether each employee here is reasonably likely to drive interstate and thus affect the safety of interstate transportation is the disputed issue in this case. II. The District Court’s and Majority’s Flawed “Group”- or “Class”-Based Analysis A. From November 2005 through November 2008, Coil Tubing Services employed the 191 plaintiffs-appellees in this case as “field service employees” tasked with servicing clients’ oil wells. During the relevant period, the company organized its business into six “districts”: the “Alice,” “Angleton,” and “Bridgeport” districts in Texas, the “Broussard” and “Bossier City” districts in Louisiana, and the “Rock Springs” district in Wyoming. However, none of the plaintiffs in this case worked out of the Bossier City or Rock Springs districts; they all worked out of the Alice, Angleton, Bridgeport, and Broussard districts. See 846 F.Supp.2d at 686 (listing employees, titles, district assignments, and start and end dates of Bellwether plaintiffs). Initially, in its first summary-judgment ruling that was later vacated and supplanted by the decision now under review, the district court held that there was a reasonable likelihood of employees in the Angle-ton and Broussard districts driving interstate, and, thus, they fell under the MCA and were not entitled to FLSA overtime pay. But, the district court further held that the likelihood of employees in the Alice and Bridgeport districts driving interstate was “so low” that there was not an “objectively reasonable expectation” of those employees driving interstate, and, thus, they did not fall under the MCA exemption. Coil Tubing Services argued that employees in all of the districts should fall under the MCA because, in all of the company’s districts nationwide, approximately seven percent of the “land project” (as opposed to offshore) jobs “required one or more service crews to mobilize coil tubing equipment across state lines.” But the district court, in its first decision, agreed with the plaintiffs that the company’s seven percent “aggregate” figure was “skewed by the extremely large number of interstate projects handled by the Rock Springs District” in Wyoming, in which none of the plaintiffs actually worked. “More than 56% of the Rock Springs projects were out-of-state,” the district court explained, “while the other districts had far fewer interstate projects.” By contrast, the district court proceeded to explain, in Alice and Bridgeport, less than one percent of the jobs handled in those districts during the relevant time were interstate; in Angleton, less than two percent of the jobs were interstate; and, in Broussard, around five percent of the jobs were interstate. After the district court’s first ruling, Coil Tubing Services moved the court to reconsider, and the court did. In its second decision, which is now under review, the district court cited regulations, codified at 29 C.F.R. § 782, of the DOL, the agency charged with enforcing the FLSA. 846 F.Supp.2d at 690. Those regulations of the DOL set out “the construction of the law [regarding the MCA exemption] which the [DOL] believes to be correct.” 29 C.F.R. § 782.0. The regulations state, “[t]he [MCA exemption] depends both on the class to which his employer belongs and on the class of work involved in the employee’s job.” Id. § 782.2(a). And they proceed to explain: The power of the Secretary of Transportation to establish maximum hours and qualifications of service of employees, on which exemption depends, extends to those classes of employees and those only who: (1) Are employed by carriers whose transportation of passengers or property by motor vehicle is subject to his jurisdiction under section 204 of the Motor Carrier Act, and (2) engage in activities of a character directly affecting the safety of operation of motor vehicles in the transportation on the public highways of passengers or property in interstate or foreign commerce within the meaning of the Motor Carrier Act. Id. (citations omitted). Based on § 782’s language regarding “classes of employees” and the “class of work involved in the employee’s job,” the district court concluded that it should not address whether “the activities of each individual employee in issue directly affected the safety or operation of commercial motor vehicles in interstate transportation.” 846 F.Supp.2d at 694 (emphasis added). Rather, the district court concluded that it must apply a “group analysis” on a “company-wide basis.” Id. at 694-95. To conduct such a “group analysis” on a “company-wide basis,” the district court defined a “group” of Coil Tubing Service employees that it named “field service employees.” Id. at 684. The court defined that “group” to encompass all of Coil Tubing Services’s employees that had “job duties and assignments” that, in the court’s opinion, were “sufficiently similar to permit some grouping.” Id. at 694-95. Then, the district court turned to the fact that seven percent of all jobs company-wide were interstate (that is, the aggregate figure that the district court had previously rejected as “skewed”) and reasoned that — even though the seven percent figure did not accurately represent the experience of the company’s Texas and Louisiana employees — it nevertheless somehow applied to the Texas and Louisiana employees under the district court’s “company-wide” “group analysis.” Id. at 703-04 & n. 48. Accordingly, the district court held1 that seven percent of jobs company-wide being interstate was sufficient to subject all employees, regardless of their districts, in the “field service employees” “group” to MCA jurisdiction and granted summary judgment to Coil Tubing Services regarding the FLSA overtime pay claims of every employee in the judicially defined “group.” Id. at 703, 715. In essence, the district court held that, because the company has employees in Wyoming who very frequently carry out duties affecting the safety of interstate transportation but are not parties to this case, that somehow creates a legal fiction that the plaintiffs here, the company’s employees in Louisiana and Texas, are deemed to also carry out those same duties just as often. The district court decided such even though the evidence showed it to be false. Now, the majority affirms the district court’s analysis and, in a published opinion, sets it as the law of this circuit. According to the majority, to determine whether employees are subject to MCA jurisdiction, courts should use an “extensive individualized methodology” to include all of a company’s employees with “sufficiently similar duties” (in the court’s opinion) in a judicially defined “class” of employees and then decide whether such “class,” rather than the individual employees within it, has a reasonable expectation of carrying out activities that affect the safety of interstate transportation. Ante, at 285-86. Without getting into the details about who exactly is in the “class” here and what connection they have to the ease, if any, the majority affirms the district court’s analysis. See id In short, in deciding MCA jurisdiction (specifically, whether an employee’s job duties are reasonably likely to affect the safety of interstate transportation), the district court and the majority of this court agree that, if employees have “sufficiently similar” job duties, the court may lump them all together into a single “group” or “class” and then decide the jurisdictional question with respect to the “group” or “class” rather than the individual employees in it. This is wrong. Contrary to the district court and the majority, an employee is exempt from FLSA overtime protection only if the MCA applies to that employee individually — i.e., that employee’s actual job circumstances are such that the employee is reasonably likely to affect the safety of interstate transportation. The relevant Supreme Court and circuit precedent requires individual analysis of the employee’s actual job and prohibits the district court’s and majority’s “group”- or “class”-based analysis. It appears that the district court and the majority have adopted their improper analysis based on two misunderstandings about the jurisprudence. First, the district court and majority appear to believe that the DOL’s regulations codified at 29 C.F.R. § 782.2, which refer to “classes of employees,” authorize the “group”- or “elass”-based analysis that they applied here. See 846 F.Supp.2d at 690 (citing § 782.2(a)); ante, at 283-84 (same). Second, the district court and majority also contend that their “group”- or “class”based analysis is required by Songer v. Dillon Resources, Inc., a 2010 decision of this court. See 846 F.Supp.2d at 694 (citing Songer); ante, at 284-86 (same). They are mistaken on both points. The history of the FLSA and MCA, to which I now turn, clearly indicates that the MCA exemption has always turned on the job circumstances of each individual employee. B. 1. The Statutory Enactments The MCA was enacted in 1935 “to regulate transportation by motor carriers.” § 202(a), 49 Stat. 543. When first enacted, the statute was enforced not by the DOT, which was not created until decades later, but by a predecessor agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission (“ICC”). §§ 203(a)(3), 204. During the initial years following the ICC’s creation in 1935, the agency promulgated a series of regulations imposing certain rules regarding the qualifications and maximum hours of service for certain workers, but the agency did not issue any formal determinations as to what it perceived to be the scope or the reach of its regulatory authority. For example, in 1936, the year after the MCA was enacted, the ICC promulgated its first regulations establishing qualifications for certain drivers while expressing no view on the ICC’s authority to regulate workers other than drivers. See Ex parte No. MC-4, 1 M.CC. 1. In 1938, the FLSA was enacted to “eliminate” “labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers.” § 2, 52 Stat. 1060. In its original form, the FLSA contained, as it still does today, the MCA exemption. § 13(b)(1) (“The provisions of section 7 shall not apply with respect to any employee with respect to whom the Interstate Commerce Commission has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service pursuant to the provisions of section 204 of the Motor Carrier Act, 1935.”). 2. The Interstate Commerce Commission’s Jurisdictional Pronouncements The MCA exemption in the FLSA “brought sharply into focus the coverage of employees by the Motor Carrier Act.” Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 310 U.S. at 540, 60 S.Ct. 1059. In 1938, the ICC, noting that the FLSA had made the question of its jurisdiction important, instituted proceedings “for the purpose of determining the extent of our jurisdiction under section 204(a) of the Motor Carrier Act, 1935, to establish reasonable requirements with respect to qualifications and maximum hours of service of employees of common and contract carriers and of private carriers of property by motor vehicle.” Ex parte No. MC-28, 13 M.C.C. 481, 481 (1939). The ICC described the dispute before it as follows: Representatives of common and contract carriers, with one exception, assert that our jurisdiction under section 204(a)(1) and (2) extends to all employees of common and contract carriers and is not limited to those employees whose activities affect the safety of operation. Representatives of organized labor, on the other hand, contend that our jurisdiction is limited to employees whose activities affect the safety of operation. Id. at 482. In 1939, the ICC sided with organized labor and announced that the agency’s jurisdiction extends only to those employees “whose activities affect the safety of operation of motor vehicles engaged in transporting passengers and property in interstate and foreign commerce.” Id. at 488. That, however, left open the question, what sorts of employees have activities that affect the safety of operation? In that regard, the ICC wrote: It is clear to us that we have power to prescribe qualifications and maximum hours for drivers and their helpers employed by private carriers of property who are engaged in driving or operating motor vehicles transporting property in interstate and foreign commerce. It may be that the activities of other employees are such that “to promote safety of operation” we have power to prescribe qualifications and maximum hours of service for them. As to what classes or types of employees, if any, may be included in this category, we do not decide here. Id. at 483. This, it appears, was the first time the phrase “classes of employees” (to be precise, “classes or types of employees”) appeared in the law books in connection with the MCA. Here, the ICC used the phrase to refer to categories of job duties and to distinguish between those duties that affect the safety of operation (and thus fall within the ICC’s jurisdictional ambit) and those that do not (and thus do not). The ICC thought it clear that “drivers” and “their helpers” are “classes or types of employees” that affect the safety of operation but did not decide “what [others], if any, may be included in this category.” M In 1941, the ICC began looking at other classes of employees, specifically, “mechanics and other garage workers,” “loaders,” and “dispatchers.” Ex parte No. MC-2, 28 M.C.C. 125, 132. As for “mechanics,” the ICC concluded that they “devote a large portion of their time to activities which directly affect the safety of operation of motor vehicles operated in interstate or foreign commence” and, thus, fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction. Id. at 133. But, as for “other garage employees,” such as “men who do nothing but paint vehicles,” their work, the ICC concluded, does not affect the safety of operation, and thus, the ICC may not regulate them. Id. As for “loaders,” “whose sole duties are to load and unload motor vehicles and transfer 'freight between motor vehicles and between the vehicles and the warehouse,” they too fell within the ICC’s jurisdiction, the agency concluded, because “[t]he evidence makes it entirely clear that a motor vehicle must be properly loaded to be safely operated on the highways of the country.” Id. at 133-34. But “dispatchers,” the ICC concluded, do not affect the safety of operations. Id. at 135. And, the ICC reaffirmed its prior determination that “driver’s helpers,” like the drivers themselves, affect safety of operations. Id. at 136. In determining that “mechanics,” “loaders,” and “driver’s helpers” carry out job duties that affect the safety of transportation, the ICC carefully defined what it meant by each of those terms, delineating who should, and who should not, be considered each. Finally, the ICC concluded that no other employees of motor carriers and motor private carriers besides “drivers and those classes of employees” already discussed “perform duties which directly affect safety of operation.” Id. at 139. In sum, in 1941, the ICC determined that “drivers,” their “helpers,” “mechanics,” and “loaders,” as thoroughly defined by the Commission, all carry out duties affecting safety of operation and thus fall under MCA jurisdiction, and all other employees of “motor carriers” and “motor private carriers” do not. 3. The Supreme Court’s 1947 Trilogy In 1947, the Supreme Court established several important legal principles relating to the ICC’s jurisdiction under the MCA. First, in Levinson v. Spector Motor Service, 330 U.S. 649, 67 S.Ct. 931, the Court held that the ICC’s “findings of fact” regarding whether particular job activities affect safety of operations were “squarely within the jurisdiction of the Commission” and were entitled to great deference. See id. at 669, 672-73, 67 S.Ct. 931 (describing the findings of fact as having a “claim to finality” and stating that, “[w]e see no reason to question [the ICC’s] considered conclusion that the activities of full-duty drivers, mechanics, loaders, and helpers, as defined by it, affect safety of operation of the carriers by whom they are employed”). Second was Pyramid Motor Freight Corp. v. Ispass, 330 U.S. 696, 67 S.Ct. 954, a companion case to Levinson. In Pyramid Motor Freight Corp., the defendant-employer invoked the MCA defense, contending that the plaintiffs-employees fit into the ICC’s definitions of “loaders” and, thus, fell under the MCA exemption. The district court dismissed the case, holding that determination of whether the employees carry out job duties that affect safety of operation was not the role of the court, but was rather a task for the ICC. 59 F.Supp. 341, 343-44 (1945). The Supreme Court rejected the district court’s conclusion that the determination should be referred to the ICC because, in Ex Parte No. MC-2, the ICC had already defined the “loaders” job classification subject to MCA jurisdiction. 330 U.S. at 706-07, 67 S.Ct. 954. Under these circumstances, there is no occasion for us to refer to the Commission any question presented in this case.... The District Court must determine simply whether or not the respec-five employees who seek to recover overtime compensation under [the FLSA] are excluded from [doing so] because they are within the above classification [“loaders”]. Id. at 707, 67 S.Ct. 954. Accordingly, the Supreme Court remanded to the district court and, importantly, ordered the district court to “determine whether or not the activities of each [employee], either as a whole or in substantial part, come within the Commission’s definition of the work of a ‘Loader.’” Id. (emphasis added). The Court proceeded to explain that, “[i]f none of the ... activities of the respective respondents, during the periods at issue, come within the kind of activities which, according to the Commission, affect the safety of operation of motor vehicles in interstate or foreign commerce within the meaning of the Motor Carrier Act, then those [employees] of which that is true are entitled to [overtime pay under] the Fair Labor Standards Act.” Id. at 708, 67 S.Ct. 954 (emphasis added). “On the other hand, if the whole or substantial part of [the] activities of the respective respondents, during the periods at issue, do come within the kind of activities which, according to the Commission, affect such safety of operation, then those respondents who are engaged in such activities are excluded from [overtime pay].” Id. (emphasis added). In short, the Court held in Pyramid Motor Freight Corp. that, in an FLSA action in which the MCA exemption is asserted as a defense, the role of the court is to determine separately whether the activities of “each” employee affect the safety of interstate transportation, and the court may deny overtime pay only to “those [employees] who are engaged in such activities.” Id. The third and final decision in the Supreme Court’s 1947 trilogy was Morris v. McComb, 332 U.S. 422, 68 S.Ct. 131. The question presented was whether an employee who spends most of his time at work carrying out duties that do not affect safety of transportation and only a fraction of his time carrying out activities that do falls under the MCA. Id. at 426, 68 S.Ct. 131. There, the evidence in the record showed that the employer, a cartage business, employed drivers to transport property. Id. at 427, 68 S.Ct. 131. About four percent of the company’s jobs involved the transportation of goods moving in interstate commerce. Id. at 432-33, 68 S.Ct. 131. The company assigned those jobs to the drivers “indiscriminately.” Id. at 433, 68 S.Ct. 131. The Court held that, in such circumstances, where about four percent of a company’s transportation jobs with an interstate nexus are shared indiscriminately among the company’s drivers, thus making the interstate commerce trips a “natural, integral, and apparently inseparable part” of each driver’s job, that amount of interstate driving was sufficient to invoke MCA jurisdiction for those drivers. Id. at 433-34, 68 S.Ct. 131. Importantly, Morris also reaffirmed Pyramid Motor Freight Corp. ’s requirement of individual analysis of each employee’s job activities. In Morris, the DOL, which had brought the suit, did not seek to recover unpaid overtime that was due to any particular employee, but rather sought only an injunction against the company to pay overtime in the future to any employees who would not, because of his job duties, fall under the ICC’s definition of a “c