OVERTIME EXEMPTION LAWYER

Exempt employees are not entitled to overtime or double time. Nor are the meal and rest breaks laws applicable to exempt employees. The law has certain categories of exemptions. Both the California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) and the United States Labor Commission have prescribed rules as to what types of employees are exempt from overtime and double time, and why. It is a bad idea for non-lawyers to read about these exemptions and assume they know the law. While it is obvious certain professions that are listed out are exempt, properly interpreting this law is difficult. In fact, there may not be a straight forward answer. Determinations whether somebody is exempt under a certain job classification may be fact specific based upon the specific job duties of the employee and how long they take.

Three of the most common exemptions are the administrative, professional, and executive exemptions. All three of these exemptions require that the employee be paid twice the applicable minimum wage. Minimum wage is set by cities, counties, special districts such as hotel districts by an airport, and the state. In order to know if an employee is paid enough to be exempt, the applicable minimum wage for the locality has to be cross referenced. Employees who do not earn twice minimum wage are not going to be exempt. But what if they are one of the jobs specifically enumerated as being exempt? This is where it is essential to speak to a qualified wage and hour lawyer at (661) 412-9600.

OVERTIME SETTLEMENTS

The value of an employee's overtime case depends on how much they earned. It also depends on how many overtime hours they worked, and whether any of the hours should be paid as double time. The longer the situation goes on, the greater the damages. Overtime lawsuits involve claims for prejudgment interest. The interest due on overtime and double time can be substantial. In order to properly figure out how much overtime is due an overtime lawyer has to go through the paystubs of the employee, their time records, their estimates of how much they worked if it was not properly recorded, and make a number of calculations. Lawyers do not perform these services for free while somebody is calling in to see if they have a new case. This kind of work takes hours if not days, and should be done once all available records are with the wage and hour lawyer.

Although not a guarantee nor prediction of the results on any particular case, The Employment Lawyers Group has achieved the following settlements for overtime:

• Some of our more notable CFRA/FMLA cases include:
• $800,000 for eight employees mis-classified as independent contractors who worked daily overtime and double time as well as many consecutive days of work without a day off
• $350,000 for an employee who was mis-classified as an independent contractor part of the time, but later was not paid overtime for being on-call
• $305,000 for two hospital communication employees who were not properly paid overtime and double time when they were on-call
• $275,000 for two broadcast employees who were not properly paid overtime and double time when they were on-call
• More than $100,000 for an employee mis-classified as non-exempt

As you can see, the larger cases involve multiple employees who were not paid overtime. They also involve situations where the overtime and double time is owed because it was not paid at all such as on-call standby pay. Smaller overtime cases may be ripe for negotiation. Moralistic employees might want to be class representatives in a case on behalf of all of the employees who were not paid overtime.