On Aug. 31, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted a motion for summary judgment against the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) burdensome and costly overtime rule and converted his earlier preliminary injunction (issued Nov. 22, 2016) to a permanent injunction.
 
ABC participated in the business coalition that achieved this outcome, and ABC General Counsel Maury Baskin of Littler Mendelson P.C. filed the successful motion for summary judgment.  

As a result of this final judgment by the district court, the pending appeal from the preliminary injunction is now moot and is expected to be dismissed. 

The Trump administration will have until Oct. 31 to decide whether to file a new notice of appeal from the judge’s final order.  ABC hopes the administration will not appeal, and instead will focus its efforts on proposing a new rule, which is already underway at DOL. 

Background:

On May 23, 2016, DOL issued the Defining and Delimiting the Exemptions for Executive, Administrative, Professional, Outside Sales and Computer Employees final rule, also known as the overtime final rule. This would have changed the federal exemptions to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act for “white collar” workers by doubling the current minimum salary level for exemption from $23,660 to $47,476 per year and automatically increasing it every three years. 

On Sept. 20, 2016, ABC and a coalition of business groups filed a lawsuit against the final rule, and on Nov. 22 it was blocked from going into effect.

On July 26, 2017, the DOL issued a Request for Information (RFI) related to the final overtime rule. The public may submit comments on the RFI until Sept. 25, 2017. 

ABC has been a vocal opponent of the overtime rule, submitting comments along with more than 900 ABC members and as a member of the Partnership to Protect Workplace Opportunity. ABC supported legislation that would prevent DOL from implementing the rule and that would have delayed its implementation.