Overtime Law Carveouts Lack High Proof Burden, US Tells Justices

Employers don’t have to meet a heightened proof standard to take advantage of a federal wage law’s overtime exemptions, including one for outside salespeople, the government told the US Supreme Court.

The Fair Labor Standards Act sets out overtime protections for workers, but provides certain carveouts from those protections for employers. “Neither the text of the FLSA nor the rights it protects suggests that employers must meet a heightened standard” to claim one of those exemptions, according to the government’s Tuesday friend-of-the-court brief.

Lawyers from the Justice Department and the Labor Department joined forces for the brief, filed in ...