Seyfarth Synopsis: The DOL’s revised overtime exemption rule takes effect today, July 1, 2024. While several lawsuits are challenging the rule, a last-minute injunction was ultimately granted for only one employer: the State of Texas. The rule is in effect for all other businesses, including businesses in Texas.


In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor published its

Continue Reading Injunction Party of One: New OT Rule Takes Effect for All Employers…Except the State of Texas

By: Kevin M. Young

Seyfarth Synopsis: With the DOL’s new overtime exemption rule weeks from taking effect, employers must consider the impacts of reclassifying exempt employees. Some potential impacts are obvious, others not so much. Proactive, thoughtful planning is key for employers to navigate these waters for their business and impacted employees alike.

With the U.S. DOL’s final overtime exemption

Continue Reading Ripples in the OT Waters: Considering the Downstream Effects of Reclassifying Exempt Employees

By Kevin Young, Noah Finkel, and Brett C. Bartlett

Seyfarth Synopsis: On December 10, 2021, the White House and U.S. Department of Labor confirmed their plan to propose new rules to increase the salary threshold for exempt employees under the FLSA and “modernize” the prevailing wage rules that apply to many federal government contractors and subcontractors. The rulemaking
Continue Reading On Deck for ’22: Exempt Salary Level Increases and Prevailing Wage Changes

Authored By Alex Passantino

As we’ve reported previously, among the items the Department of Labor identified earlier this year in its Regulatory Agenda was a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking to rescind portions of a 2011 rule that restricted tip pooling for employers who do not use the tip credit to satisfy their minimum wage obligations. On October
Continue Reading Tip Credit Rule to White House

Co-authored by Brett Bartlett, Alex Passantino, and Kevin Young

Seyfarth Synopsis: On Thursday afternoon, a federal judge in Texas issued an order officially invalidating the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2016 overtime rule, which would have more than doubled the minimum salary level for most overtime-exempt employees. While the long awaited ruling brings a measure of closure for employers,
Continue Reading Obama Overtime Rule Invalidated by Federal Court in Texas

Co-authored by Kyle Petersen, John Giovannone, and Noah Finkel

Seyfarth Synopsis: By resurrecting reliance on the administrative/production dichotomy in FLSA administrative exemption cases, the Ninth Circuit is at odds with the California Supreme Court’s application of the state’s administrative exemption. California employers thus find themselves in a strange new world where the state construct is easier to understand
Continue Reading It’s a Strange New World in California for the Administrative Exemption

Co-authored by Noah Finkel, Colton Long, Kyle Petersen, and John Giovannone

Seyfarth Synopsis:  FLSA cases holding against employers typically invoke a canon of construction that the FLSA should be construed broadly, and any of its exemptions narrowly. But a study of the roots of this language shows that the canon has a dubious foundation and that it
Continue Reading Can We Finally Retire the Notions of Construing The FLSA’s Overtime Provisions Broadly But Its Exemptions Narrowly?

Co-authored by John Giovannone, Kyle Petersen, and Noah Finkel

Seyfarth Synopsis: Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit chose to side with the Second Circuit, and not the Sixth Circuit, to opine that mortgage underwriters fail to meet the FLSA’s administrative exemption from overtime test because underwriting duties “go to the heart of… marketplace offerings, not to the internal
Continue Reading Making A Mountain Of The Administrative/Production Dichotomy Molehill

Authored by Alex Passantino

Seyfarth Synopsis: On July 26, 2017, the U.S. Department of Labor will publish its anticipated Request for Information on the White-Collar Overtime Exemption in the Federal Register. The RFI will give the regulated community 60 days to provide its comments in response.

The RFI seeks input on a wide variety of topics, many of which involve
Continue Reading DOL Seeks Comment on Overtime Rule

Authored by Alex Passantino

Seyfarth Synopsis: The Wage & Hour Division announced its regulatory plan for the next year and it is less ambitious than some may have anticipated.  A request for information on the overtime rule and a proposal to rescind a limited tip credit regulation are all that is on the immediate horizon for employers.

Each spring and
Continue Reading What’s on the Agenda? Tips and OT