Employees whose job it was to investigate and determine the likely cause of damage to the equipment of broadband service providers were misclassified as exempt by their employer, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held. Therefore, the employees’ overtime claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) were improperly dismissed by the trial court. Fowler v. OSP Prevention Group, Inc., 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 17679 (11th Cir. June 27, 2022). The Eleventh Circuit has jurisdiction over the federal courts in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.
The FLSA generally requires that employees be paid no less than minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime at one-and-a-half times their “regular rate” for all work in excess of 40 hours per workweek. However, the FLSA also includes a number of exemptions from overtime, including what is commonly referred to as the “administrative” exemption. To qualify for that exemption, an employee must earn at least $684 per week ($35,568 per year) and their primary duty must be “office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers” and include “the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a).
In this case, the plaintiffs were employed by OSP Prevention Group (OSP) as property damage investigators, who were assigned to investigate and determine the likely cause (e.g., backhoe digging, rodent...
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