Schlumberger Gets Partial Fifth Circuit Win in Overtime Dispute

A federal appeals court vacated a district judge’s ruling that Schlumberger Technology Corp. owes an oilfield drilling worker overtime pay, though the panel rejected the energy company’s bid to toss the entire wage-and-hour collective action.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dismissed the US District Court for the Western District of Texas’ partial grant of summary judgment for the case’s lead plaintiff, Trever Guilbeau, ruling Friday that he was paid on a salary basis and therefore ineligible for overtime compensation.

In declining to throw out the entire lawsuit, Judge Patrick Errol Higginbotham, who ...