On December 12, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) finalized a new rule that lets employers leave several perks, including tuition benefits, paid leave cash-outs, and some bonuses, out of the formula used to calculate employees’ overtime pay. According to the DOL’s press release, this new rule “marks the first significant update to the regulations […]
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On September 24, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced a final rule to make an estimated 1.3 million American workers eligible for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Check out Snell & Wilmer’s legal alert on the final rule here.
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Most employers know that the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires minimum wage and overtime to be paid to employees unless they are exempt. A common mistake, however, is when employers fail to properly factor certain incentive compensation into non-exempt employees’ regular rate for purposes of calculating overtime pay. This costly mistake can lead to […]
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On March 7, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released its long-awaited Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to update the minimum salary threshold under the Fair Labor Standards Act – an update that would make approximately a million more workers eligible for overtime pay. The DOL released the details on its website[1] ahead of […]
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In this week’s L&E Legal Alert, Jennifer Yee and Josh Woodard take a deeper dive into the Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro where the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the longstanding principle that courts construe FLSA exemptions narrowly and, instead, adopted a “fair reading” standard. For more information, see here.
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In a 5-4 opinion issued on April 2nd, the United States Supreme Court held that service advisers at car dealerships are exempt from the overtime pay requirement of the FLSA because they are “salesm[e]n . . . primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles.” This ruling is significant for not only the auto industry, […]
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Earlier this week the California Supreme Court ruled that when calculating the regular rate of pay for flat rate bonuses an employer must divide the employee’s total pay (including the bonus) by the employee’s total non-overtime hours worked and multiply the result by 1.5 for each overtime hour worked. This diverges from the federal regulations […]
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The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) abandoned its former test for assessing whether interns qualify as “employees” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Aligning itself with several appellate courts, including the Ninth and Second Circuits, the DOL now embraces a seven-factor “primary beneficiary” test to distinguish employees from bona fide interns. The test enables […]
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A Texas federal district court judge invalidated the Department of Labor’s (“DOL’s”) controversial Final Rule that would have made more than 4 million currently exempt employees eligible for overtime. On May 23, 2016, the DOL issued its Final Rule which sought to increase the minimum salary threshold to qualify for the “white collar” overtime exemption […]
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Yesterday, a federal judge from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas entered a nationwide preliminary injunction prohibiting the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing updates to the salary requirements for exempt employees. Earlier this year, 21 states banded together and filed suit against the DOL and argued that the DOL’s […]
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