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Flint Avenue v. Department of Labor

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CASE SUMMARY

NCLA challenges DOL’s 2024 rule that set a salary standard for determining whether “white collar” employees are exempt from Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage and overtime requirements. The regulation prevented employers from claiming the exemption for millions of employees nationwide. This required employers to reclassify their employees as hourly, preventing them from benefiting from flexible work arrangements. Flint Avenue competes with large corporations by offering its seven employees flexible work arrangements, including unlimited vacation. The rule would have forced the company to reclassify several of those employees as hourly, making such mutually beneficial arrangements no longer possible.

The FLSA exempts anyone “employed in a [white collar] capacity” from its minimum wage and overtime requirements, a definition based on their job’s function, not their pay. This allows many small businesses to compete against larger companies by offering flexible employment options where benefits are not solely based on hours worked. DOL’s rule effectively erased that standard, prohibiting employees from being eligible for the exemption unless they were paid a fixed weekly salary of at least $1128, regardless of their role at the company. FLSA does not authorize DOL to impose a minimum weekly salary requirement on all white-collar employees in the guise of an exemption. Delegating that lawmaking power to DOL would violate the Vesting Clause in Article I of the Constitution, since FLSA contains no intelligible principle to guide DOL’s exercise of such authority.

The DOL’s rule would have allowed it to automatically raise the minimum salary level every three years, ignoring the Administrative Procedure Act’s notice-and-comment requirements and the federal statute that only authorizes exemptions “from time to time by regulation[.]” Acting Labor Secretary Su lacked authority to promulgate the rule, having unconstitutionally claimed secretarial powers for over a year without Senate confirmation.

OUR TEAM

Sheng Li
Litigation Counsel
John J. Vecchione
Senior Litigation Counsel

RELEVANT MATERIALS

NCLA FILINGS

Plaintiff's Supplemental Brief in Support of Its Motion for Summary Judgement and in Opposition to Defendants' Cross-Motion for Summary Judgement

November 18, 2024 | Read More

Plaintiff’s Response to Defendants’ Cross Motion for Summary Judgment and Reply to Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment

September 18, 2024 | Read More

Memorandum in Support of Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgement

August 7, 2024 | Read More

Order of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Denying Motion for Stay or Preliminary Injunction

July 1, 2024 | Read More

Plaintiff's Response to Defendants' Notice of Supplemental Authority

June 30, 2024 | Read More

SEE 11 FILINGS
PRESS RELEASES

NCLA Asks Court to End DOL’s Illegal Power Grab, Overturn Wage and Overtime Exemption Rule

August 8, 2024 | Read More

NCLA Asks Court to Stop DOL’s Illegal Undermining of Longstanding Wage and Overtime Exemption

June 12, 2024 | Read More

NCLA Suit Fights DOL’s Unlawful Undermining of Longstanding Wage and Overtime Exemption

June 4, 2024 | Read More

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