Labor Opinions Are Fair Game for Litigation After Circuit Ruling

Advisory opinions the US Labor Department uses to answer employers’ legal questions can undergo judicial review, according to a federal appeals court decision this week that also made the department’s most recent memo unenforceable.

The department suffered the double blow in a US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision that remanded review of a data-for-insurance scheme back to the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The ruling on advisory opinions paves the way for companies to sue the Labor Department if they disagree with its subregulatory conclusions and could force regulators to shy away from ...