Is a college degree important?

December 19, 2001

For those of you who have argued that college degrees aren't important, I submit

the following excerpt from Daley vs. City of Houston (the Fire/EMS overtime pay

suit) located at: http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/Opinions/pub/00/00-20770-cv0.htm.

For convenience, court writing is in blue, highlights in red, my words in black.

Also, I've been following this series of cases for a *long* time - my dad's the

president of IAFF Local 58, Dallas FireFighter's Association, and they were

involved in several similar suits that reached the fifth circuit. So while I'm

not an attorney, and I don't work for Houston, I've sat up many nights

discussing the in's and out's of this at the station with my dad, his guys, etc.

I'm ashamed to say that in general, most EMS workers don't even have a clue as

to what the regulations are, much less the impact of the rulings.

Mike

29 C.F.R. § 541.3. This definition consists of two prongs: the education prong

and the discretion prong. If an employer proves that his employee satisfies both

prongs, the employee is not entitled to overtime compensation because he falls

within the Learned Professional exemption. The City fails to show that the Daley

Plaintiffs satisfy either prong of this exemption.

Here, the city is arguing that even if EMS workers don't meet the " fire safety

employee " exemption (commonly known as 207(k)), they meet the Learned

Professional exemption. The court makes a decision in this section as to

whether or not the Learned Professional exemption applies to EMS personnel.

First, the Daley Plaintiffs lack the educational background to satisfy the

education prong of the Learned Professional exemption. DOL regulations note that

" [t]he typical symbol of the [required] professional training and the best prima

facie evidence of its possession is, of course, the appropriate academic

degree. " 29 C.F.R. § 541.301(e)(1). City regulations do not require a college

degree to qualify as a paramedic or EMT. The Department requires EMTs to

complete only 200 hours of didactic training, clinical experience, and field

internship and requires paramedics to complete only 880 hours of specialized

training in didactic courses, clinical experience, and field internship. The

only court to directly address this issue held that requirements such as these

were insufficient to meet the education prong. See Quirk v. Balt. County, 895 F.

Supp. 773 (D.Md. 1995). In Quirk, the court ruled that, unlike nurses who must

complete three academic years of study in an accredited college plus a fourth

year of professional course work in a school of medical technology, paramedics,

the highest level EMT, did not have the necessary education to be " learned

professionals " under the regulations because they were only required to achieve

600 hours of classroom and field training. Quirk, 895 F. Supp. at 785.

Not having a college degree as a requirement pretty much disqualified EMS

personnel as " Learned Professionals. " Okay, we all knew that being a paramedic

never required a degree in Texas, and we successfully killed the degree

requirement for licensure. In doing that, we (EMS personnel, speficially

paramedics, in Texas) also killed our chance to at least be recognized under

labor laws as Learned Professionals. But read on... this gets better.

Although no Fifth Circuit case analyzes whether these EMT/paramedic requirements

satisfy the education prong of the Learned Professional exemption, we applied

the exemption in Owsley v. San Indep. Sch. Dist., 187 F.3d 521 (5th Cir.

1999). The court held that athletic trainers are " learned professionals " exempt

from the FLSA overtime compensation provisions. Id. at 527. The court found that

the trainers satisfied the education prong because they were required to

achieve, at a minimum, the following: (1) a bachelor's degree in any field; (2)

1800 hours apprenticeship over a three-year period; (3) completion of five

3-hour credit college courses in specific areas of study; and (4) a C.P.R. test.

Id. at 524-25. The Owsley panel analogized the trainers' educational training

and background to those of airline pilots who, while lacking the requirement of

a college degree, were required to " complete a course of instruction to learn

the regulations governing pilots, basic aerodynamic and flight principles, and

numerous airplane operations. " Id. at 525. The court cited nurses, accountants,

and " actuarial computants, " as other examples of " learned professionals. " Id. In

this case, the EMT/paramedic educational requirements are much less rigorous

than those required for athletic trainers. Moreover, the educational backgrounds

of EMS workers are not as extensive as those of any of the professionals cited

as examples by the panel in Owsley. For these reasons, we find that the Daley

Plaintiffs do not satisfy the education prong of the Learned Professional

exemption.

Athletic Traininers are Learned Professionals because they have a Bachelor's

Degree in *any field*. And to quote, " the educational backgrounds of EMS

workers are not as extensive as those of any of the professionals cited as

examples by the panel in Owsley. " It's not a comparative analysis, folks - not

that trainers, pilots, nurses or accountants are any more 'professional' (note

the *single* quote, not the double quote here). It's that they have a much more

definitive requirement for background education. Something which EMS

professionals in Texas have rejected time and time again. I'll be intererested

to see what people think about paramedic licensure now, and what people think

about degree requirements for paramedics.

What do you think? Personally, I recognize the need for EMT-B's and EMT-I's to

be able to become certified and provide care to those in need without the

requirement of a college degree. But I wholeheartedly support the requirement

of at least an AAS degree for *any* new paramedic...

Mike