The district court concluded on summary judgment that Smith was an administrative employee, and a jury by special verdict found the same for Nicholson. Nicholson and Smith claim that the district court erred, and that as a matter of law, they cannot be administrative employees. Nicholson and Smith claim that because they never received a dime, they cannot be administrative employees, and, therefore, the bar to their relying on the FLSA drops away. This is an unusual interpretation of the FLSA, one that would convert an entire category of state contract law actions into federal labor suits. Because Congress did not intend such a result for well- compensated, highly responsible positions, we reject the proffered interpretation.
Plaintiffs raise two other issues.
The first is whether there is no evidence to support the jury's special verdict against Nicholson. Inc. The precise details of the web's structure are inconsequential, because the companies suffered a default judgment and only McCullar and Peabody remain as defendants on appeal. With claimed expertise in lottery operations, Bachman served as point man for defendants McCullar and Peabody in their dealings with plaintiffs Nicholson and Smith. Plaintiff Smith had worked on lotteries with Bachman before. Then, in November 1992, Bachman convinced Smith to help on the lottery enterprise in the former Soviet Union.