Because most FLSA exemptions are affirmative defenses, their applicability is not often established by the Plaintiff’s Complaint, of which s/he is “master” and can shape to avoid addressing exemption-triggering duties. There are exceptions. In a recent opinion, a Manhattan federal district judge ruled that a commissioned salesman who traveled from his home office to

Following-up on his decision on January 7th granting summary judgment to Prospect Mortgage regarding the applicability of the outside sales exemption to one loan officer, Judge James C. Cacheris of the Eastern District of Virginia has issued two more decisions on similar motions for summary judgment by the employer, granting a second one and

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

The most recent installment in the continuing saga concerning the exempt status of various managerial titles in the retail industry involves a group of plaintiffs referred to by their employer (the drug chain Rite Aid) as “Co-Managers” and by plaintiffs as “Assistant Managers.” Judge Paul Gardephe of the United States District Court for the Southern

Even when employers successfully prevail on exemption defenses at the trial court level, such victories often do not signal the end of litigation –as evidenced by the recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which reversed a summary judgment decision upholding an employer’s application of the executive exemption. Maestas

In a case involving retailer Dollar General, another federal judge has refused to hold as a matter of law that a retail store manager is an overtime-exempt “executive” for purposes of the FLSA.  Judge James Jones denied summary judgment to Dollar General in Hale v. Dolgencorp, Inc., 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62584 (W.D. Va.