On February 14, 2025, the Fifth Circuit denied the appellants’ petition for rehearing en banc in Mayfield v. United States Dep’t of Labor—a September 2024 decision holding that the U.S. Department of Labor’s authority to...more
2/24/2025
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Salary/Wage History ,
SCOTUS ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Wage and Hour
On November 15, 2024, in State of Texas v. United States Dep’t of Labor, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ruled that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) exceeded its rulemaking authority by...more
For the second time in seven years, a federal court in Texas has struck down a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rule aimed at expanding the scope of overtime eligibility to workers across the country. On November 15, 2024, in...more
On Friday, June 24, 2024, the business day before the Biden Department of Labor’s new overtime rule was scheduled to take effect, a federal district judge granted the State of Texas’s motion for a preliminary injunction to...more
On June 17, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will tackle a 6-1 circuit split and decide an important wage and hour issue for employers: what burden of proof an employer must satisfy to demonstrate that its...more
The DOL released its updated federal overtime rule on April 23, 2024. With limited exceptions, the rule increases the minimum salary for exemption as executive, administrative, or professional (“EAP”) employee from $684 per...more
The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) completed its review of the updated federal overtime rule on April 10, 2024. We can expect publication of the final rule in the Federal Register any day now,...more
The New York State Department of Labor has issued the updated minimum wage poster for “Miscellaneous Industry” employees for 2024. The update covers all industries other than hospitality, farmworkers, and building service. ...more
On December 27, 2023, the New York State Department of Labor published a Notice of Adoption in the New York State Register, finalizing increases in the minimum wage and minimum salaries for exemption effective January 1,...more
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with respect to the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed updated overtime exemptions rule was published in the Federal Register on September 8, 2023. The 60-day public comment period closes...more
On August 30, 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) released its proposed new rule on the “white collar” overtime exemptions. The new rule, which would be codified in a revised 29 C.F.R. Part 541, will be published...more
It’s always exciting when the Supreme Court takes up a wage and hour issue—at least for us. Earlier this week, in Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt, the court tackled the question of whether a daily rate can...more
To properly calculate the overtime rate for a non-exempt employee, employers must first calculate the “regular rate of pay.” Under federal law, and the laws of most states, the regular rate is determined by dividing the...more
A number of companies suffered collateral damage last winter as a result of a cyber attack on a major provider of time and attendance software. With your timekeeping systems compromised, how do you determine what to pay your...more
10/27/2022
/ Attendance ,
Compensation ,
Cyber Attacks ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Over-Time ,
Payroll Records ,
Ransomware ,
Real Time Payment (RTP) ,
Risk Management ,
Software ,
Timekeeping ,
Vendors ,
Wage and Hour
In this blog series, we look at a variety of activities and discuss whether an employer has to pay its non-exempt (i.e., overtime-eligible) employees for their time spent engaging in them. We’ll focus on federal law, but as...more
Shortly after his election in November 2021, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that he would accept his first three paychecks in Bitcoin. On January 20, 2022, the day before his first paycheck from the City was...more
3/9/2022
/ Bitcoin ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Digital Currency ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Ethereum ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Minimum Wage ,
Over-Time ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Securities Regulation ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
On July 15, 2021, the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, in which it held that meal and rest break premiums required under California Labor Code section 226.7 (“Section...more
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) issued two new opinion letters on January 8, 2021, bringing the number of “lame duck” wage and hour opinion letters—issued since Election Day 2020—to six....more
On December 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) issued two opinion letters—one on home-to-office travel time and one on live-in caregivers. Such “lame duck” opinion letters—issued...more
On November 3, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) issued new opinion letters addressing the compensability of time spent by employees attending voluntary training programs and in work-related...more
On September 2, 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that employees bear the burden of proof on whether bonuses should have been included in the regular rate of pay for purposes of calculating overtime...more
In an opinion letter issued on August 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor restated its position that an employee’s hours need not fluctuate above and below 40 hours to qualify for the fluctuating workweek (“FWW”) method of...more
For almost 80 years, it has been the law that an overtime-eligible employee whose hours fluctuate from week to week and who agrees to receive a fixed weekly salary covering all hours of work is entitled to a halftime premium...more
On May 19, 2020, the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) implemented a final rule withdrawing partial lists of establishments that it previously interpreted as either having “no retail concept” or...more
5/23/2020
/ Administrative Interpretation ,
Amended Rules ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Exemptions ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Over-Time ,
Relief Measures ,
Retail Sales ,
Retailers ,
Sales Commissions ,
Salespersons ,
Wage and Hour
On November 20, 2019, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the fluctuating workweek (“FWW”) method of calculating overtime pay owed to salaried workers is prohibited by state law. Chevalier v. General Nutrition Centers...more