| Auer v. Robbins | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued December 10, 1996 Decided February 19, 1997 |
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| Full case name | Auer et al. v. Robbins et al. | |||||
| Docket nos. | 95-897 | |||||
| Citations | 519 U.S. 452 (more) 117 S. Ct. 905; 137 L. Ed. 2d 79; 1997 U.S. LEXIS 1272; 65 U.S.L.W. 4136; 133 Lab. Cas. (CCH) P33,490; 97 Cal. Daily Op. Service 1157; 97 Daily Journal DAR 1673; 10 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 284 |
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| Prior history | United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| Sergeants and Lieutenants are exempt for the Federal Labor Standards Act. | ||||||
| Court membership | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Scalia, joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, O’Conner, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsberg and Breyer | |||||
| Laws applied | ||||||
| Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 | ||||||
Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997), is a United States Supreme Court case that deals with overtime pay. The question before the court was “Must sergeants and lieutenants in the St. Louis Police Department be paid for working overtime according to relevant provisions found in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938?”
Contents |
Sergeants and a lieutenant of the St. Louis Police Department sued their police commissioners for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The commissioners argued that under the act the petitioners were bona fide executive, administrative or professional employees and therefore exempt from the FLSA. The Department of Labor states that exemption applies to employees paid a salary. However the regulation states that in order to be exempt from the act the salary cannot change because of variations in the quality or quantity or the work performed, though this was not the practice of the department. The petitioners claimed that because the department could theoretically be reduced for a variety of disciplinary infractions related to the quality and quantity of their work. Both the District Court and the Eighth Court of Appeals disagreed with the petitioners and held that all of them satisfied the salary-basis test.
The court agreed with the lower courts' assertions that the petitioners met the requirements of fully salaried employees. The court also stated that the laws as interpreted cannot be challenged because they were suing the police commissioners, not the Secretary of Labor.