United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ___________________________ No. 19-1414 ___________________________ Jacob Riegelsberger, individually and on behalf of all similarly situated persons Plaintiff - Appellant v. Air Evac EMS, Inc.; Global Medical Response, Inc., formerly known as Air Medical Group Holdings, Inc. Defendants - Appellees ____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis ____________ Submitted: January 16, 2020 Filed: August 17, 2020 ____________ Before BENTON, GRASZ, and STRAS, Circuit Judges. ____________ STRAS, Circuit Judge. Jacob Riegelsberger sued his employer, Air Evac EMS, Inc., under federal law for unpaid overtime wages. After determining that his job was exempt from federal overtime requirements, the district court 1 granted summary judgment to Air Evac. We affirm. I. Riegelsberger is a flight paramedic with Air Evac, an “air ambulance” service that provides emergency medical transportation by helicopter. Under company policy, he does not receive overtime pay until he works more than 84 hours over a two-week pay period. He believes that this policy violates the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), which requires most employers to pay overtime after an employee works more than 40 hours in a single week. See 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1). He seeks to recover unpaid overtime wages under FLSA. See id. § 216(b). Before the district court, Air Evac argued that it was a “carrier by air,” which would make Riegelsberger’s job exempt from FLSA’s overtime requirements. Id. § 213(b)(3). He had two responses: (1) the company’s prior statements “estopped” it from invoking the exemption; and (2) the exemption did not apply anyway. The court rejected the estoppel argument, concluded that the job was exempt, and granted summary judgment to the company.2 II. We begin with Riegelsberger’s equitable-estoppel argument. Equitable estoppel prevents “a party who makes a representation that misleads another person” from denying it if the other person “reasonably relies on [it] to his detriment.” Duty v. Norton-Alcoa Proppants, 293 F.3d 481, 493–94 (8th Cir. 2002) (citation omitted); 1 The Honorable Audrey G. Fleissig, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri. 2 The district court also dismissed a claim brought against Air Evac’s parent company, Global Medical Response, Inc. This particular decision is not before us on appeal. -2- see also Heckler v. Cmty. Health Servs. of Crawford Cty., Inc., 467 U.S. 51, 59 (1984) (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 894(1) (Am. Law Inst. 1979)). The reason is that “a party [may not] tak[e] inequitable advantage of a situation it caused.” Immigration Law Grp., LLP v. McKitrick, 484 F.3d 998, 1001 (8th Cir. 2007). The parties’ disagreement extends beyond just basic equitable-estoppel principles to the underlying standard of review. The general rule is that equitable decisions, including those involving estoppel, are subject to an abuse-of-discretion standard. See Duty, 293 F.3d at 493. Riegelsberger would rather have us start from scratch with de-novo review, but his only support comes from a case involving a motion to compel arbitration, Donaldson Co. v. Burroughs Diesel, Inc., 581 F.3d ...
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