In March 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the closely watched Perez v. Mortgage Bankers. The Court’s decision killed a longstanding doctrine, set by the D.C. Circuit, that changes to federal agency rules,...more
OSHA is attempting to reap the policy-making benefits of a Supreme Court decision that lets regulatory agencies offer new (even contradictory) interpretations of existing rules without following the Administrative Procedure...more
In a marked departure from the overwhelming success employers experienced before the Supreme Court in recent years, the less successful recently wrapped 2014-2015 term could be an indication that the judicial tides may be...more
Welcome to the 2015 Mid-Year Report from the BakerHostetler Securities Litigation and Regulatory Enforcement Practice Team. The purpose is to provide a periodic survey, apart from our team Executive Alerts, on matters we...more
In a move that is expected to have far-reaching consequences for employers, the U.S. Department of Labor issued new guidance on the classification of independent contractors as employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act...more
On July 15, the Department of Labor’s Wage Hour Division (WHD) issued guidance on how to identify employees who are misclassified as independent contractors. In a 15-page administrator’s interpretation (AI), WHD head David...more
As forecast in our June 12, 2015 blog post David Weil, Administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has released Administrator’s Interpretation (AI) No. 2015-1, entitled “The Application of the Fair...more
As you undoubtedly know by now, the Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division (WHD) finally announced its long-promised proposal to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Regulations and, in particular, those governing...more
During the United States Supreme Court’s 2014-2015 term, the Court departed from the pro-business reputation it had developed in labor and employment cases. This term, employees prevailed more often than not, including in...more
As the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014-15 term draws to a conclusion, the Court has resolved — or will resolve in a matter of days — several cases with potentially wide-reaching implications for a range of important policy and...more
In my post of April 2, Divided Supreme Court Restricts Provider Challenges to State Medicaid Rates, I wrote about the March 31st Supreme Court decision that providers may not sue in federal court over the adequacy of state...more
The automotive industry, as much as any industry operating in the United States, has a substantial federal regulatory burden, with an alphabet soup of agencies charged with regulating under the authority of an alphabet soup...more
In March, the Supreme Court upheld an agency’s reversal of its own regulatory interpretation without requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking. Regulated entities now face considerable uncertainty in relying on agencies’...more
Reversing a district court decision, and declining to follow decisions from a number of other courts, including the Fourth and Fifth Circuits, the Ninth Circuit has deferred to the Department of Labor's (DOL) "flip-flopped"...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Ass’n invalidated a significant line of D.C. Circuit case law known, after the leading case, as the Paralyzed Veterans doctrine. A case involving a series...more
In a decision published on March 9, 2015, the Supreme Court ended the D.C. Circuit Court’s Paralyzed Veterans doctrine, which required administrative agencies to utilize the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA)...more
On March 9, 2015, Justice Sotomayor, writing on behalf of the majority, overturned the Paralyzed Veterans doctrine, which requires federal agencies to use a notice-and-comment process before making a significant revision to...more
We know that many of you are aware of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association. The Court held that the U.S. Department of Labor was not required to follow notice and comment procedures in...more
Over the last three decades, federal agencies have increasingly used “interpretations” to “explain” what a formal regulation means, rather than to go through the more expensive, complicated and slow process of changing the...more
For the past several years, an action by the Mortgage Bankers Association has been brewing in the courts challenging the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) for issuing contradictory opinion letters on whether mortgage loan...more
The Supreme Court recently rejected a challenge to the validity of a 2010 interpretation by the U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”), which had concluded that the administrative exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act...more
When federal agencies change their interpretive rules, they are exempt from the formal notice-and-comment rulemaking requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), says the Supreme Court in its recent ruling in...more
Recently, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous judgment that government agency "interpretive rules" are not subject to notice-and-comment rulemaking, but cautioned that those same rules do not carry the "force and effect of...more
Federal agencies now have the authority to interpret their own rules. On March 9, 2015, in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Ass’n, No. 13-1041, slip op. (U.S. Mar. 9, 2015), the United States Supreme Court effectively gave...more
In a March 9, 2015, decision in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Ass'n., the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that an interpretative rule issued by an administrative agency does not require notice and opportunity for comment,...more