Exemptions

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The Department of Labor continues carrying out its aggressive regulatory agenda, releasing the much-anticipated final rule extending FLSA minimum wage and overtime protection to direct care workers such as home health aides, personal care aides and certified nursing assistants working for home care agencies and other domestic services employers, and reversing the application of …

Of the FLSA’s many highly technical exemptions from overtime, one that can require a detailed regulatory and factual analysis to properly apply, is the motor carrier exemption. In a new decision highlighting one of technical aspects of the exemption, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that the proper measure of…

An employee holding a position involving some degree of managerial authority but not enough to qualify for the executive exemption, is sometimes classified as exempt under the administrative exemption. This classification is premised on, among other duties, these individuals making decisions concerning workflow, prioritizing tasks, and communicating with customers.  The Court of Appeals for the…

The FLSA’s “outside sales” exemption from minimum wage and overtime is among the more straightforward exemptions, in that it contains only two requirements: that the employee be “customarily and regularly” away from the employer’s place of business; and that the employee primarily be engaged in making sales. This simple-sounding test does not preclude disputes regarding its…

In 2010, the Department of Labor announced it would cease its “opinion letter” practice, wherein employers could submit written questions regarding application of the FLSA and its implementing regulations, and receive guidance. Replacing the opinion letter structure were “administrator interpretations,” wherein the Department would simply issue an advisory opinion on its own volition.  Contemporaneous with announcing…

Changes in technology and technology-related jobs occur at warp-speed; the law, however, moves slowly. For this reason, regulations regarding exempt status of workers are sometimes drafted with broad language to capture future changes in duties and positions not in existence at the time the regulations are implemented.  Regulations regarding the exempt status of computer professional employees are…

Exempt status under the FLSA often requires payment of a fixed salary on the salary basis discussed in the DOL regulations. 29 C.F.R. § 541.602. An employee classified as exempt sometimes asserts that receipt of supplemental compensation beyond the fixed salary renders him a non-exempt employee. Courts, however, have rejected this argument, requiring only payment of the fixed…

Dedicated wage-and-hour practitioners, like many attorneys, will often find wage-and-hour issues to analyze in everyday life. Take, for example, this recent article regarding former Fenway Park fixture and local legend the “Crunch ‘n Munch” guy. The article, in addition to providing the back story behind his meteoric rise to local sports stardom (and drastically increased compensation)…

The highly technical application of the motor carrier exemption to the FLSA’s overtime payment requirement often requires an analysis of the goods being transported by the purported motor carrier. If the goods in question are still traveling in the “continuous stream of interstate travel,” triggering Department of Transportation jurisdiction over the motor carrier, the exemption …

Among the most straight-forward components of the FLSA exemption analysis is the salary basis test, which requires that employees exempted pursuant to the “white collar exemptions” generally receive a fixed salary  of at least $455a week (higher under many state laws). At times, however, challenges arise based on certain deductions from the salary paid to such…