Alaska Justices Change Wage Law’s ‘White Collar’ Exemption Test

Schlumberger Technology Corp. and a local branch of the Society for Human Resource Management convinced the Alaska Supreme Court that employers should only be required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that a worker held an executive, administrative, or professional role exempt from state overtime pay requirements.

A 1993 decision setting a beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard for assessing whether a worker falls under any exemptions to the Alaska Wage and Hour Act is “overruled,” the state’s top court said in answering a certified question from a federal judge.

That case was wrongly decided, Justice Daniel E. Winfree said April 23. ...