The U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division welcomed the new year by issuing six new opinion letters on January 5, 2026 — four regarding the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and two regarding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). As background, opinion letters explain how the DOL applies federal employment laws
For those thinking that classifying workers as independent contractors is a cheaper way of doing business, beware. A California court just ordered a home healthcare business to pay $10 million in restitution and civil penalties for misclassifying its home care workers as independent contractors. The judgment in the case states that the company already was
Are home health and personal care workers eligible for overtime? That is a more complicated question than it first appears. In fact, it could be about to change again as certain providers of home health and personal care workers face a major shift as the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
Just this week, in Richards v. Eli Lily & Co., the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals became the third circuit to depart from the long-standing Lusardi standard for distributing notice to potential plaintiffs in collective actions. The Seventh Circuit adopted a new test that lower courts must now follow to determine whether notice should
The call or visit that no employer wants to receive: a Department of Labor representative asking to look at your payroll records. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) gives the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) the authority to seek the payment of unpaid minimum wages or unpaid overtime. In the past, at the
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, now is the perfect time to reflect on things for which we have to be thankful. In the ever-evolving world of labor and employment law, there have been several significant developments over the past year that employers can appreciate.
Here are five key updates for which we are thankful:
![That’s [Mis]Classified: What Employers Must Prove to Claim an FLSA Overtime Exemption](https://www.employmentlawinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/36/2024/11/Woman-Standing-in-Maze-GettyImages-1420679447.jpg)
By now, everyone has heard about the Texas court putting the kibosh on the new salary exempt thresholds. In other exemption classification news, the United States Supreme Court is set to issue an opinion in early 2025 affecting the standard an employer must meet to prove an employee is exempt from overtime requirements under
What about those salary thresholds for white-collar employees? Although they have been challenged, they are alive and kicking. Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed that the Department of Labor has the authority to set the minimum salary required to qualify for the white-collar exemption.
The Minimum
How the FLSA “tip credit” is applied has been pushed and pulled numerous times over the last two decades. In the latest volley, the Fifth Circuit entered an order on August 23, 2024, vacating the Department of Labor’s 2021 Final Rule on how employers pay wages for workers that receive tips. The court’s initial
As technology continues to evolve, so do the dynamics of labor and employment. The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2024-1 (FAB 2024-1). FAB 2024-1 is a groundbreaking document shedding light on how the DOL thinks artificial intelligence (AI) and automated