companionship exemption

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In 2013 the Department of Labor announced new regulatory language that substantially limited the scope of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s companionship exemption. Those regulations, of course, were challenged through litigation which remains ongoing, and their implementation by the USDOL was delayed until many months after the original effective date of January 1, 2015. Though…

Providing much needed guidance to industry employers still wrestling with fallout from the United States Department of Labor’s drastic reduction to the scope of the companionship exemption, District Court Judge Sandra S. Beckwith held this week that a home care agency properly relied on the temporary vacatur of the DOL’s new federal regulations in…

Last week, an Ohio, a federal judge held that a home health aide failed to demonstrate that she performed general housework unrelated to the care of her patients, and therefore qualified as a provider of companionship services under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s previous formulation of the “companion” exemption. As such, the home health…

Chief Justice Roberts’ denial of the Home Care Association of America’s request for stay of issuance of mandate confirms that the new rule rendering many home health aides overtime-eligible is effective, pending appeal. In response to that denial, Wage-and-Hour Administrator David Weil issued a new policy statement confirming that the Department’s “non-enforcement period” for the…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today ruled that the U.S. Department of Labor’s decision to  reverse its prior position and extend the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime protections to employees of third-party agencies who provide companionship services and live-in care within a home was a reasonable interpretation of the law.  The…

On the heels of his ruling vacating the DOL’s new rule (which was scheduled to be effective January 1st) rendering the FLSA’s companionship exemption unavailable to “third party” employers of companions, Judge Richard Leon has now issued a companion decision vacating the new, substantially narrowed definition of “companionship services” contained in the same…

In response to pressure from state governments and others fearing the increased cost of home care services, the Department of Labor announced Tuesday that it would delay its own enforcement of the new rule requiring that previously-exempt “companions” receive minimum wage and overtime.  The DOL’s Policy Statement stated that the DOL would not…