Opinion ID: 4540298
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Falcon Jet’s Payroll Procedures

Text: The summary judgment record includes a Falcon Jet Payroll Notification, effective October 26, 2015, advising team leader Coates of a “merit increase” changing his compensation to an “annual salary” of $74,244.96 and a “new rate” of $2,855.5754. Production liaison Smith received a notice effective the same day increasing his compensation to an “annual salary” of $71,549.57 and a “new rate” of 4 The Supreme Court in Auer also ruled that the Department of Labor’s interpretation of the regulations submitted in an amicus brief was “controlling unless ‘plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.’” Id. at 461 (quotation omitted). This was a more controversial ruling, which came to be known as “Auer deference’” It was substantially restricted, if not all but overruled, in Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019). We deal here with the Secretary’s regulations interpreting an ambiguous statutory exemption, not with the Secretary’s interpretation of the regulations. As Chief Justice Roberts noted, concurring in part in the plurality opinion in Kisor, “Issues surrounding judicial deference to agency interpretation of their own regulations are distinct from those raised in connection with judicial deference to agency interpretations of the statutes enacted by Congress.” Id. at 2425, citing Chevron. -6- $2,751.9064. Each team leader and production liaison Plaintiff received a comparable Payroll Notification. The record also includes a form completed by plaintiff Robert Anderson when he was promoted to team leader stating that his compensation switched from hourly wage to annual salary. Falcon Jet paid Plaintiffs bi-weekly. Though it classified team leaders and production liaisons as exempt salaried employees, it required them to clock in and out of work and to track the projects on which they worked on an hourly basis. This enabled Falcon Jet to accurately determine project costs for cost accounting purposes and to pay Plaintiffs straight-time overtime compensation for hours they were “directed” to work over 40 hours in a one-week period. For “regular” hours worked, Falcon Jet calculated the hourly rate by dividing each employee’s annual salary by 2,080 -- 40 hours per week multiplied by 52 weeks in a year.5 When a team leader or production liaison recorded fewer than 40 hours in a work week, Falcon Jet deducted available time from one of the employee’s paid leave banks, usually vacation or sick time. It also deducted at the regular hourly rate for each hour the employee did not work using unpaid FMLA time.