On September 5, 2017, the Department of Labor filed with the Fifth Circuit an unopposed motion asking the court to dismiss its appeal of the nationwide preliminary injunction ruling issued last November by a Judge Amos Mazzant in the Eastern District of Texas.  The motion states that DOL’s appeal is moot in light of Judge Mazzant’s entry of final judgment on August 31, 2017.  Barring any unusual further developments, we anticipate that the Fifth Circuit will dismiss the appeal promptly.

By withdrawing the appeal, the Department is signaling that it intends to abandon the 2016 Final rule and, instead, to proceed with a new rulemaking in line with the Request for Information (“RFI”) the Department issued on July 26, 2017.  That RFI seeks public input regarding what salary level or levels, if any, the Department should use in place of the 2016 figures in order to update the $455 weekly / $23,660 annual salary requirement for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions implemented in the Department’s 2004 rulemaking, as well as the $100,000 annual compensation threshold for the highly-compensated variant of these exemptions.

The comment period for the RFI currently ends on September 25, 2017.  To date, regulations.gov has received more than 138,000 comments in response to the RFI, though most of the comments appear to be identical submissions by numerous different commenters, as is common for this type of rulemaking.  Watch for a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking announcing a new salary level for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions in the next few months.

 

Back to Wage and Hour Defense Blog Blog

Search This Blog

Blog Editors

Authors

Related Services

Topics

Archives

Jump to Page

Subscribe

Sign up to receive an email notification when new Wage and Hour Defense Blog posts are published:

Privacy Preference Center

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.