Court Opinion

ID: 9926297
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-24 16:02:11.886006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:22.070295
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13669    Document: 54-1      Date Filed: 01/24/2024   Page: 1 of 43

                                                              [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-13669
                           ____________________

        MARIA EUGENIA BLANCO,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        ANAND ADRIAN SAMUEL,
        LINDSEY ADAMS FINCH,

                                                   Defendants-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cv-24023-RNS
                           ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13669

        Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and HULL, Circuit Judges.
        ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:
               Say the word “nanny,” and any number of beloved ﬁctional
        characters may pop into mind: Julie Andrews’s Mary Poppins, Mar-
        tin Lawrence’s Big Momma, Fran Drescher’s Nanny Fine, Robin
        Williams’s Mrs. Doubtﬁre, or Vin Diesel’s Shane Wolfe, to name
        just a few. But except for perhaps labor-law lovers, most people
        probably have never thought about whether any of these nannies
        would have been entitled to overtime pay in the real world. After
        all, none of these ﬁctional nannies ever had a story line involving
        overtime pay.
               In the real world, though, whether a nanny is entitled to
        overtime pay presents an important question for both nannies and
        their employers. The Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) governs
        the answer to this question. As it turns out, generally, employers
        must pay overtime to nannies who work fewer than 120 hours per
        week and “reside” oﬀ the premises where they work. This case re-
        quires us to construe what it means for a nanny to “reside” at her
        the house where she works.
               Plaintiﬀ Maria Blanco spent roughly three years working as
        a nanny and housekeeper for Defendants Anand Samuel and Dr.
        Lindsey Finch (together, the “Parents”). For much of that time,
        Blanco worked 79 hours each week, beginning with one 23-hour
        shift and followed by four 14-hour overnight shifts. At the end of
        each shift, Blanco left the Parents’ house until her next shift began.
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        22-13669              Opinion of the Court                        3

                The Parents paid Blanco for all 79 hours she worked each
        week. But Blanco believes she is also entitled to overtime compen-
        sation for 39 hours of the 79 hours each week and ﬁled this action
        to collect the extra wages. The Parents dispute Blanco’s claim for
        overtime pay because, in their view, she falls under a provision of
        the FLSA that exempts “any employee who is employed in domes-
        tic service in a household and who resides in such household” from
        receiving overtime compensation. 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21). The dis-
        trict court agreed with the Parents that Blanco “reside[d]” in their
        house, entered summary judgment in the Parents’ favor, and de-
        nied Blanco’s motion for summary judgment.
                We see things diﬀerently. Based on the ordinary meaning of
        the term “resides,” we conclude that Blanco did not “reside[]” in
        the Parents’ house. Blanco was a night-shift worker who treated
        the Parents’ house as her place of employment. She maintained a
        separate abode, she was on duty for the entirety of her 79 hours
        each week, and two or three other nannies worked the hours when
        Blanco didn’t. In short, based on these and other facts we discuss
        later, Blanco’s actions and duties show that the Parents’ house was
        not her residence. For these reasons, we cannot properly catego-
        rize Blanco as a live-in domestic service employee, and she is enti-
        tled to overtime compensation for the hours she worked each week
        in excess of 40.
              Separately, the Parents contend that they individually were
        not Blanco’s employer, so they weren’t responsible for paying her
        overtime wages. Because we don’t make credibility determinations
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        4                        Opinion of the Court                     22-13669

        at this stage, no matter our view of the evidence, we must agree
        with the district court that a genuine dispute of material fact exists.
        So we remand for a trial on this question.
               After careful review of the record, and with the beneﬁt of
        oral argument, we aﬃrm in part and vacate in part the district
        court’s order and remand for further proceedings.
                                     I.     Background

               Blanco ﬁled a motion for summary judgment under Federal
        Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a). When reviewing a grant of sum-
        mary judgment under Rule 56(a), we view the record in the light
        most favorable to the nonmoving party and make all factual infer-
        ences in that party’s favor. Feliciano v. City of Miami Beach, 707 F.3d
        1244, 1252 (11th Cir. 2013).
                The Parents did not separately move for summary judg-
        ment. Instead, in their reply to Blanco’s motion, they urged the
        district court to sua sponte grant summary judgment in their favor,
        as Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f )(1) permits. For summary
        judgment under that rule, we view the record in the light most fa-
        vorable to the nonprevailing party in the district court (here,
        Blanco). 1

        1 Under Rule 56(f)(1), after giving the moving party “notice and a reasonable

        time to respond, the court may . . . grant summary judgment for a non-
        movant.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(f)(1). Although Blanco was the initial moving
        party and the Parents urged the court to grant summary judgment to them as
        “nonmovant[s],” the Rule 56(f)(1) summary-judgment standard is effectively
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        22-13669                  Opinion of the Court                             5

               Blanco appeals both the district court’s Rule 56(f )(1) grant
        of summary judgment in favor of the Parents and the district
        court’s denial of her Rule 56(a) motion for summary judgment. In
        reviewing the district court’s denial of Blanco’s summary-judg-
        ment motion, we conclude that Blanco established that she did not
        “reside” at the Parents’ house, so she was entitled to summary
        judgment on her Rule 56(a) motion as to the overtime-pay issue.
        For that reason, we review the facts in the light most favorable to
        the Parents as the nonmoving party and draw all factual inferences
        in the Parents’ favor.
                                  A. Factual Background

                                    1. Blanco’s Tenure
               Maria Blanco began working as a nanny and housekeeper
        for the Parents in 2018. During the time the Parents employed her,
        the Parents had four daughters, all of whom Blanco looked after
        when she was on duty. 2 But Blanco wasn’t the only nanny who
        worked for the Parents. Rather, at all times, Blanco was one of
        several nannies who split the hours of the children’s care, so when
        Blanco was on duty, she worked by herself.
             When Blanco started working for the Parents in 2018, she
        worked one shift per week. That shift ran during the day on

        the same as the one for Rule 56(a). For clarity, in the Rule 56(f)(1) context
        here, we use the term “nonprevailing party” rather than “nonmoving party.”
        2 The Parents’ children were born in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018. The Parents

        now have five children.
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        6                        Opinion of the Court                    22-13669

        Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. In January 2019, after the
        unexpected death of a diﬀerent nanny, Blanco began covering the
        late nanny’s shifts, which largely consisted of overnight work. Un-
        der her new schedule, Blanco worked 79 hours each week. She
        began with a 23-hour shift from Sunday at 10:00 a.m. to Monday at
        9:00 a.m. Blanco’s other hours came through four 14-hour shifts
        on consecutive days from Monday through Thursday, from 7:00
        p.m. to 9:00 a.m. the following morning. Blanco, in other words,
        ﬁnished her work week on Friday mornings at 9:00 a.m.
              At the end of each of her ﬁve shifts during each week,
        Blanco almost always left the Parents’ house, and a diﬀerent nanny
        took over the childcare duties. The Parents told Blanco that she
        was welcome to stay on the premises after her shifts, which she did
        on occasion. And sometimes, Blanco would invite friends over to
        the Parents’ house. Blanco earned $800–$880 per week. 3
                While Blanco worked for the Parents, the Parents brieﬂy
        lived in a condominium but later moved into a 3-bedroom, 2-bath-
        room house. In that house, the Parents slept in the master bed-
        room, while two of their daughters slept in each of the other two
        bedrooms. During her shifts, Blanco stayed in the room with the
        two youngest girls.
               Blanco’s responsibilities included housekeeping and clean-
        ing, doing the family’s laundry, tending to the children and putting

        3 The record is inconsistent as to whether Blanco earned $800 per week, $880

        per week, or some amount in between.
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                        7

        them to bed, feeding the babies at night, changing diapers, remain-
        ing alert to the children and addressing any issues they had over-
        night, and waking the children up each morning. According to
        Blanco’s deposition testimony, the children woke up often over-
        night, and that kept Blanco awake for much of the night. Still,
        Blanco acknowledges that she slept for some periods during the
        night. And before Blanco rested, she said, she spent the late-night
        hours studying English on Duolingo while the girls slept.
               For their part, the Parents testiﬁed in their depositions that
        Blanco slept every night. They knew that, they explained, because
        they could hear her snoring from outside the door when they
        passed by the bedroom. And Blanco was a heavy sleeper. On two
        or three occasions, after returning home late and ﬁnding himself
        locked out of the house, Samuel had to bang on Blanco’s bedroom
        window to ask her to let him in because Blanco did not respond
        when Samuel rang the doorbell or called her on the phone.
               When Blanco arrived for her shifts, she brought a change of
        clothes and an overnight bag. She usually showered at the Parents’
        house after the children went to sleep. The room in which Blanco
        stayed with the girls was not big. So Blanco had only a small bed
        and a nightstand with a lamp, alarm clock, and Amazon Echo
        there. According to the Parents, Blanco kept a few clothes and
        books in the nightstand. Blanco and the girls’ father Samuel were
        both Catholic, and in the house, Blanco placed some religious sym-
        bols, such as an open Bible in the living room, a rosary in one bed-
        room, and an angel in another.
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        8                     Opinion of the Court                 22-13669

               Importantly, when Blanco was not working, she lived with
        her aunt at an apartment in North Miami. Although no written
        lease memorialized that arrangement, Blanco testiﬁed that she paid
        rent in cash to her aunt every month. After her shift ended at the
        Parents’ home, Blanco usually returned to the apartment and slept
        from around 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. until 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. She did not
        have a key to the Parents’ house, and she seldom stayed at the
        house beyond her shifts. Still, though, the Parents always left the
        house unlocked.
               Blanco stopped working for the parents in August 2021.
        That happened, Blanco testiﬁed, because the Parents told her that,
        after the birth of their ﬁfth child, they reassessed their childcare
        needs and no longer required her services. But according to Dr.
        Finch (the mother), Blanco’s release stemmed from her abandon-
        ment of the job. Grace Trask, another nanny, ﬁred Blanco.
                          2. Nanny Employment Structure
              As we’ve mentioned, along with Blanco, several other nan-
        nies worked in the Parents’ house during the relevant period.
        These other nannies were Isabella Toribio, Adrianna Gomez, Shane
        Tompkins, and Grace Trask. For most of that period, the Parents
        employed the nannies through one of two LLCs, each of which
        one of the nannies operated. The ﬁrst entity was called Nannies
        with Love, LLC, and Toribio ran that operation. At some point,
        Nannies with Love exited the picture, and the second entity, Amaz-
        ing Gracie, LLC, took over. Trask managed Amazing Gracie.
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        22-13669              Opinion of the Court                        9

               Although the parties dispute many facts surrounding the for-
        mation and structure of these entities, they do agree on some
        points. As relevant here, the Parents were each LLC’s only client,
        the Parents paid the LLCs the exact amounts that corresponded
        with the nannies’ collective compensation, and the LLCs them-
        selves made no proﬁts.
               Still, the parties disagree about some things. For example,
        Blanco alleges that the Parents directed Toribio and Trask to open
        and operate the LLCs, while the Parents deny all involvement in
        the formation of the LLCs.
               Even more fundamentally, Blanco contends that the Parents
        controlled all aspects of her employment, including hiring and ﬁr-
        ing, scheduling, compensation, and responsibilities inside the
        house. Meanwhile, the Parents deny any involvement with the
        nannies’ employment in their house. They claim they “outsourced
        all aspects of the nanny operation” to the LLCs, “including sched-
        uling, payroll[,] and regulatory compliance.” The Parents assert
        that they did not hire the nannies, did not control the nannies, and
        were not involved in setting any nanny’s schedule, compensation,
        or responsibilities. Rather, the Parents insist, they told the LLCs
        only which hours they needed childcare coverage and paid the
        LLCs a weekly lump sum, while the LLCs ﬁlled in all the remaining
        details. Indeed, the Parents claimed, they “had no operational con-
        trol over, and knew little about” the LLCs. In short, the Parents
        reject the notion that they knew anything about the nannies who
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        10                    Opinion of the Court                22-13669

        worked in their household and cared for their children twenty-four
        hours a day, seven days a week.
               That said, the Parents do acknowledge that, during an eight-
        week period in late 2018 through early 2019 after the Parents had
        an “acrimonious” separation with Toribio and Nannies with Love,
        the Parents were involved in the employment of the nannies “until
        another nanny agency was established.” This arrangement lasted
        until the Parents hired Trask and her new entity, Amazing Gracie,
        to serve as replacements.
               During the eight-week period in which no LLC was in-
        volved—the alleged “lone exception” to the Parents’ general policy
        of minimizing their personal involvement with their children’s
        care—Dr. Finch paid the remaining nannies (including Blanco) di-
        rectly by personal check. She also served as their supervisor. Ac-
        cording to the Parents, after the Parents’ separation with Nannies
        with Love, that LLC’s remaining nannies stopped working for it
        and instead “elected to continue to provide nanny services” for the
        Parents’ children. Amazing Gracie then hired each of the other
        nannies and became their employer.
                              B. Procedural History

               Blanco ﬁled a complaint in state court seeking payment of
        overtime wages under the FLSA. According to Blanco, she is enti-
        tled to $28,891.59 in overtime pay. So including the FLSA’s
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        22-13669                   Opinion of the Court                             11

        liquidated-damages multiplier, 4 Blanco seeks a total of $57,783.18,
        plus attorneys’ fees.
                The Parents removed Blanco’s suit to federal court. Primar-
        ily, they argued that she is statutorily exempt from receiving over-
        time pay under 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21), which excludes “any em-
        ployee who is employed in domestic service in a household and
        who resides in such household.” 5
              After discovery, Blanco moved for summary judgment. She
        contended that the FLSA makes her a protected employee, does
        not exempt her from overtime pay, and entitles her to liquidated
        damages.
               The Parents opposed the motion. In their view, Blanco was
        statutorily exempt from overtime pay, and “substantial evidence”
        showed that the Parents were not Blanco’s employer. The Parents
        also urged the district court to grant summary judgment in their
        favor under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f )(1).
             The district court ﬁrst denied Blanco’s motion for summary
        judgment. It concluded that Blanco was not entitled to overtime

        4 Under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), an employee bringing an FLSA action to collect

        overtime pay may recover the amount of that pay plus the same amount in
        liquidated damages. In other words, if she is entitled to overtime pay, Blanco
        may recover twice the amount she is owed.
        5 The Parents initially raised a few other defenses.  They asserted that Blanco
        improperly seeks payment for sleep and meal time, some de minimis time, and
        some time that the statute of limitations bars. But the Parents did not develop
        these defenses in the district court, so we do not discuss them further.
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        12                        Opinion of the Court                     22-13669

        pay because the record evidence suggested that she was exempt
        from overtime pay under section 213(b)(21). As the district court
        saw things, under the Department of Labor’s (“Department”) reg-
        ulations, Blanco “reside[d]” in the Parents’ house, so she was ex-
        empt from overtime pay. The district court also found that a gen-
        uine dispute of material fact existed over whether the Parents were
        Blanco’s employer.
               Besides reaching these conclusions, the district court gave
        notice that it would consider applying Rule 56(f ) to support sum-
        mary judgment in the Parents’ favor. Then, it scheduled a hearing
        to allow Blanco to present arguments.
               After the hearing, the district court granted summary judg-
        ment for the Parents. It reiterated its conclusion that Blanco was
        exempt from overtime pay under section 213(b)(21) and that
        Blanco did not create a genuine dispute of material fact on the ap-
        plicability of the exemption. Citing record evidence that Blanco
        slept during her shifts, the court determined that the evidence sup-
        ported summary judgment.
               Blanco timely appealed. 6
                                II.     Standard of Review

              Summary judgment is appropriate when no genuine dispute
        of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment

        6 While this appeal was pending, the district court awarded $6,741.58 in costs

        to the Parents.
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        22-13669                Opinion of the Court                          13

        as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477
        U.S. 317, 322–23 (1986). As to Blanco’s Rule 56(a) motion, we re-
        view a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, con-
        struing all evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
        party, the Parents. See Harrison v. Culliver, 746 F.3d 1288, 1297 (11th
        Cir. 2014). When factual conﬂicts arise, we “must credit the non-
        moving party’s version.” Feliciano, 707 F.3d at 1252 (alteration
        adopted) (citation omitted). But summary judgment may be
        proper when the question before the district court is purely a ques-
        tion of law. Saregama India Ltd. v. Mosley, 635 F.3d 1284, 1290 (11th
        Cir. 2011).
                 On the other hand, even if a court “believes the evidence
        presented by one side is of doubtful veracity, it is not proper to
        grant summary judgment on the basis of credibility choices.” Mil-
        ler v. Harget, 458 F.3d 1251, 1256 (11th Cir. 2006). Indeed, the court
        cannot discount a party’s testimony on summary judgment “unless
        it is blatantly contradicted by the record, blatantly inconsistent, or
        incredible as a matter of law, meaning that it relates to facts that
        could not have possibly been observed or events that are contrary
        to the laws of nature.” Feliciano, 707 F.3d at 1253. And we’ve rec-
        ognized that a nonmoving party can create a genuine dispute of
        material fact even if its evidence “consists primarily or solely of [its]
        own self-serving sworn statements or testimony.” Patterson v. Ga.
        Pac., LLC, 38 F.4th 1336, 1351 (11th Cir. 2022). “‘Credibility deter-
        minations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of legit-
        imate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a
        judge,’ so they are not appropriate determinations to make at the
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                   22-13669

        summary judgment stage.” Butler v. Gualtieri, 41 F.4th 1329, 1334
        (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242,
        255 (1986)).
                                    III.   Discussion

                Our discussion proceeds in two parts. We ﬁrst consider
        whether the FLSA’s exemption for live-in domestic service employ-
        ees excludes Blanco from overtime-payment eligibility. Second, we
        assess whether the Parents have raised a genuine dispute of mate-
        rial fact as to whether they were Blanco’s employer.
                     A. Blanco is not exempt from overtime pay.

             1. Under the FLSA, Blanco did not reside at the Parents’ house.
                The FLSA entitles many workers to overtime compensa-
        tion—time-and-a-half pay—for each hour of work exceeding forty
        hours per week. 29 U.S.C. § 207(a); see Thompson v. Regions Sec.
        Servs., Inc., 67 F.4th 1301, 1305 (11th Cir. 2023). Congress designed
        the overtime provision “both to ‘compensate employees for the
        burden’ of working extra-long hours and to increase overall em-
        ployment by incentivizing employers to widen their ‘distribution
        of available work.’” Helix Energy Sols. Grp., Inc. v. Hewitt, 598 U.S.
        39, 44 (2023) (alteration adopted) (quoting Overnight Motor Transp.
        Co. v. Missel, 316 U.S. 572, 577 (1942)).
               But not all workers are eligible for overtime compensation.
        The FLSA “exempts certain categories of workers from its protec-
        tions, including the overtime-pay guarantee.” Id.; 29 U.S.C.
        § 213(b). The exemption at issue here excludes “any employee who
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                         15

        is employed in domestic service in a household and who resides in
        such household.” 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21). We will call this provision
        the live-in service exemption.
               Congress enacted the live-in service exemption in 1974
        when it amended the FLSA “to include many ‘domestic service’
        employees not previously subject to its minimum wage and maxi-
        mum hour requirements.” Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke,
        551 U.S. 158, 162 (2007); Fair Labor Standards Amendments of
        1974, Pub. L. 93-259, § 7, 88 Stat. 55, 62 (1974). Though the amend-
        ments broadened FLSA’s coverage of domestic service workers,
        they exempted certain workers from coverage, including through
        the live-in service exemption. Long Island Care, 551 U.S. at 162.
               For the live-in service exemption to apply, the employee
        must (1) work in domestic service, (2) work in a household, and (3)
        reside in that household. See 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21). The parties
        agree that Blanco meets the ﬁrst two requirements. But they dis-
        pute whether she “reside[d]” in the Parents’ household. So we
        must interpret the statute and apply it to the undisputed facts in the
        record to determine whether Blanco “reside[d]” with the Parents,
        as the FLSA contemplates that term.
               The Supreme Court has provided instructions for how we
        should interpret the FLSA’s exemptions. In the past, courts had
        construed the exemptions narrowly against the employers assert-
        ing them. See Arnold v. Ben Kanowsky, Inc., 361 U.S. 388, 392 (1960).
        But we no longer do so after the Supreme Court’s decision in En-
        cino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 138 S. Ct. 1134, 1142 (2018). In Encino
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        16                         Opinion of the Court                       22-13669

        Motorcars, the Court explained that “the FLSA gives no ‘textual in-
        dication’ that its exemptions should be construed narrowly,” so
        “there is no reason to give them anything other than a fair (rather
        than a ‘narrow’) interpretation.” Id. (quoting Antonin Scalia &
        Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 363
        (2012)). After all, the Supreme Court reasoned, the exemptions in
        section 213(b) “are as much a part of the FLSA’s purpose as the
        overtime-pay requirement.” Id. 7
               To construe the live-in service exemption, we begin (as we
        always do) with the statutory text. See Thompson, 67 F.4th at 1305.
        The FLSA does not deﬁne “resides.” Nor have the Supreme Court
        or we construed the FLSA’s use of that term. So to determine the
        meaning of “resides,” we turn to its “plain meaning at the time of
        enactment.” Tanzin v. Tanvir, 141 S. Ct. 486, 491 (2020). Based on
        contemporaneous dictionary deﬁnitions, to “reside” means “to
        dwell permanently or continuously; have a settled abode for a time;
        have one’s residence or domicile.” Reside, Webster’s Third New Int’l
        Dictionary, Unabridged 1971 (1971); 8 see also United States v. Sabhnani,

        7 Nevertheless, the employer generally bears the burden of proving that an

        exemption applies. See Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188, 196–97
        (1974); Fowler v. OSP Prevention Group, Inc., 38 F.4th 103, 105 (11th Cir. 2022).
        8 This definition parallels others from around 1974, when Congress enacted

        the language. See e.g., Reside, Black’s Law Dictionary 1473 (4th ed. rev. 1968)
        (“Live, dwell, abide, sojourn, stay, remain, lodge.”); Reside, Webster’s New
        World Dictionary 1209 (2d college ed. 1972) (“To dwell for a long time; have
        one’s residence; live.”); Reside, Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1806 (3d ed.
        1973) (“To dwell permanently or for a considerable time, to have one’s settled
        or usual abode, to live, in or at a particular place.”).
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                        17

        599 F.3d 215, 256 (2d Cir. 2010) (adopting a similar deﬁnition). In
        other words, to determine whether Blanco “reside[d]” at the Par-
        ents’ house, we must examine whether she lived there.
                Applying that deﬁnition, the undisputed facts in the record
        show that Blanco did not “reside[]” at the Parents’ house. At all
        times, Blanco was one of three or four nannies who worked in
        shifts at the Parents’ house. Blanco arrived at the house on Sunday
        mornings, worked for 23 hours, and then worked four 14-hour
        shifts during the rest of the week. So she was generally at the Par-
        ents’ house for less than half of the week (79 out of 168 hours). In
        between her ﬁve shifts, Blanco usually left the Parents’ house and
        returned to the apartment she shared with her aunt to carry on
        with her own life.
               And when she was at the Parents’ house, Blanco was always
        working and on duty. To be sure, Blanco slept at times during the
        night while she was on duty and the children in her room were fast
        asleep. But even so, Blanco remained on duty at those times. So if
        a child cried during the night, it was Blanco’s job to immediately
        respond to that child. In other words, though Blanco may have
        slept sometimes while the children slept, her time was not hers.
        Indeed, the Parents paid Blanco to be on call for all the hours of her
        shift. See 29 C.F.R. § 785.21 (“An employee who is required to be
        on duty for less than 24 hours is working even though [s]he is per-
        mitted to sleep or engage in other personal activities when not busy
        . . . It makes no diﬀerence that she is furnished facilities for
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        18                     Opinion of the Court                 22-13669

        sleeping. Her time is given to her employer. She is required to be
        on duty and the time is worktime.”).
                To put an even ﬁner point on it, the bed Blanco sometimes
        slept in—which, as we’ve noted, wasn’t in her own space but in the
        same room as two of the children—wasn’t even hers. She shared
        it with the two or three other nannies. Because the three or four
        nannies weren’t all at the Parents’ house at the same time, they ef-
        fectively tag-teamed the single bed, each using that same bed on
        their own shifts. That is hardly a typical arrangement at one’s own
        residence. And if the Parents were right, that would mean that all
        three or four nannies who shared that single bed in the children’s
        room lived at the Blanco house, merely because they sometimes
        slept there. So on this record, the fact that Blanco sometimes slept
        in the shared bed, while the children in her care also slept, does not
        help the Parents’ case that she “reside[d]” at their house.
               Nor did Blanco spend any real leisure time at the house, and
        she kept few personal belongings there. So every time Blanco ar-
        rived for a shift, she had to bring an overnight bag and change of
        clothes with her.
               From these facts, viewed in the Parents’ favor, we cannot
        conclude that Blanco “reside[d]” at the Parents’ house. No doubt
        Blanco worked at the house and spent signiﬁcant time there. But
        that alone does not mean she “reside[d]” there any more than ﬁre-
        ﬁghters who sleep in ﬁre-station dormitories while on duty reside
        at a ﬁre station. The record contains no evidence that Blanco con-
        sidered the Parents’ house to be her own home. She maintained a
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        22-13669                 Opinion of the Court                            19

        separate address and spent as much time away from the Parents’
        house as she spent at the house. She also did not usually spend any
        time at the house between 9:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. on the days she
        was scheduled to work. Nor did she usually spend any time there
        on Fridays or Saturdays after her weekly shifts ended. 9 What’s
        more, Blanco did not even have her own key to the Parents’ house.
        In short, her behavior was inconsistent with “resid[ing]” there.
               The Parents emphasize certain parts of the record to sup-
        port their argument that Blanco “reside[d]” in their house. We are
        not persuaded.
               First, the Parents stress that Blanco sometimes slept when
        she tended to the children overnight. We’ve already explained why
        that doesn’t help the Parents here.
                The Parents also contend that Blanco “treated [their] home
        as her residence” for three other reasons. The Parents note that
        Blanco (1) stored clothing, books, and papers in the nightstand,
        kept an alarm clock on the nightstand, placed an open Bible in the
        living room, and aﬃxed religious paraphernalia around the house;
        (2) regularly made breakfast for herself after the school-aged chil-
        dren left for school; and (3) hosted guests from time to time.
              To support the ﬁrst aspect of their arguments, the Parents
        submitted a declaration from one of the other nannies, Adrianna
        Gomez. More speciﬁcally, Gomez said that Blanco kept religious

        9 The lone exception occurred when Blanco agreed to cover the Friday or Sat-

        urday shifts of the other nannies, which the record shows she did sometimes.
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        20                     Opinion of the Court                 22-13669

        books, cosmetics, slippers, and socks in the children’s room with
        the nannies’ bed. Gomez also attested that the alarm clock in the
        bedroom belonged to Blanco. And Samuel said Blanco placed a fan
        and an air puriﬁer by her bedside (though Blanco testiﬁed that the
        fan belonged to the Samuel family).
               Blanco did not dispute that she placed certain items around
        the house. She testiﬁed at her deposition that she bought a protect-
        ing angel statute and gave it to the girls. She hung one rosary that
        belonged to her over the bed designated for her (and the other nan-
        nies) and another rosary that belonged to the family in the bed-
        room that the two older daughters shared. Blanco also opened a
        Bible to a particular verse to protect the home from illness. She
        testiﬁed that she did these things out of her concern for the girls
        and based on her Catholic faith, which she shared with Samuel.
               Even after we credit Gomez’s declaration and make all infer-
        ences in the Parents’ favor, our conclusion remains the same:
        Blanco did not “reside[]” in the Parents’ house, as the FLSA uses
        that term. That Blanco kept a few belongings at the Parents’ house
        does not mean she treated the house as her residence. Just as many
        oﬃce workers keep personal eﬀects—clothing, photos, religious
        items, and other personal mementos—at their place of employ-
        ment, Blanco kept a few items in the bedroom where she spent
        much of her time at work.
                And given that Blanco testiﬁed that she placed religious ob-
        jects in the house to protect her charges, Blanco’s display of a bible
        verse, a couple of rosaries, and an angel around the house are also
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                         21

        unremarkable. She saw her placement of those items as helping
        her care for the children—what she was hired to do. The presence
        of Blanco’s few stray belongings didn’t make her place of employ-
        ment her residence. Nor did the Parents’ testimony about eating
        breakfast at the Parents’ house or having an occasional houseguest
        turn their house into Blanco’s residence any more than eating
        breakfast at the oﬃce or having a friend stop by an employee’s
        workplace makes that workplace the employee’s residence.
                 To establish that Blanco “reside[d]” at their home, or to cre-
        ate a genuine issue of material fact on this question, the Parents
        needed to submit additional evidence to suggest that she did, in
        fact, live there. On this record, they have failed to do so.
               By all accounts, Blanco maintained a separate residence at
        her aunt’s apartment and returned there after her shifts were over.
        That she worked long hours at the Parents’ house does not mean
        she also resided there. The common understanding of a “resi-
        dence” precludes the conclusion that the Parents’ house was
        Blanco’s residence.
               The Parents contend that our conclusion that Blanco did not
        “reside” in their house conﬂicts with the Second Circuit’s decision
        in United States v. Sabhnani. Even if Sabhnani were binding—it’s
        not—we disagree that the two decisions are inconsistent. In Sa-
        bhnani, the defendants forced two domestic workers to live in the
        defendants’ house and work there for minimal wages. 599 F.3d 215,
        224–32 (2d Cir. 2010). Because the workers were brought to the
        United States from Indonesia and had nowhere else to go, the
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        22                         Opinion of the Court                         22-13669

        Second Circuit concluded that they “reside[d]” at the defendants’
        house. Id. at 256–57. In contrast, here, Blanco spent only her paid
        work hours at the Parents’ house and returned to her own apart-
        ment at the end of each of her shifts. She is not similarly situated
        to the workers in Sabhnani. Unlike those workers, she was not a
        permanent resident in the defendants’ home for any period.
                In sum, after reviewing the record and making all inferences
        in the Parents’ favor, we conclude that Blanco did not “reside[]” in
        the Parents’ house. For that reason, Blanco falls outside the FLSA’s
        live-in service exemption, and she is entitled to overtime pay from
        her employer 10 for each hour she worked over forty hours per
        week.
          2. The Department regulations that the Parents cited do not establish
                      that Blanco resided at the Parents’ house.
               Our decision ﬂows directly from the statutory text. Still,
        though, the Parents focus on Department regulations that they be-
        lieve bear on the meaning of the term “resides.” See Appellees’ Br.
        at 9–37. We take a moment to explain why we conclude that, even
        considering these regulations, Blanco did not “reside” at the Par-
        ents’ house. 11

        10 As we discuss in Section III.B, a fact issue exists as to who or what entity was

        Blanco’s employer.
        11 As we note in the first sentence of the paragraph above, we agree with our

        colleague Judge Hull that “the statutory text of the Fair Labor Standards Act .
        . . is unambiguous and dispositive of the issue on appeal.” That said, the par-
        ties and the district court spent much time addressing the regulations as well.
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        22-13669                 Opinion of the Court                           23

               In parts of the 1974 FLSA amendments, Congress expressly
        empowered the Secretary of Labor to deﬁne certain statutory
        terms through regulations. E.g., 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(15) (noting that
        exemptions apply to certain employees in “domestic service em-
        ployment . . . as such terms are deﬁned and delimited by regula-
        tions of the Secretary”); see also Long Island Care, 551 U.S. at 165
        (“the FLSA explicitly leaves gaps” for the Department to ﬁll
        “through rules and regulations”). Although Congress did not make
        such an indication for the term “resides,” the 1974 amendments
        also included a broad, general grant of rulemaking authority, au-
        thorizing the Secretary of Labor “to prescribe necessary rules, reg-
        ulations, and orders with regard to the amendments made by this
        Act.” Pub. L. 93-259, § 29(a); see also Home Care Ass’n of Am. v. Weil,
        799 F.3d 1084, 1091 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (recognizing the Department’s
        broad authority).
               We begin by observing that the Department has promul-
        gated regulations about live-in service workers. Still, though, none
        of those regulations expressly deﬁne “resides.” But in regulatory
        materials, the Department has elaborated on its view of when a
        worker “resides” at her employer’s premises.
              In 2013, the Department promulgated a Final Rule further
        developing its interpretation of certain FLSA provisions, including
        the applicability of overtime provisions to domestic service

        So while we don’t need to address them because the statutory text answers
        our question, we think it makes sense to explain why, even if we considered
        the regulations, it would make no difference to the outcome here.
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        24                       Opinion of the Court                    22-13669

        workers. Application of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 78 Fed. Reg.
        60,454 (Oct. 1, 2013) (codiﬁed at 29 C.F.R. § 552) (“2013 Final
        Rule”). In the preamble to the 2013 Final Rule, 12 the Department
        said it promulgated the Rule to “better reﬂect Congressional intent
        given the changes to the home care industry and workforce since
        that time.” 78 Fed. Reg. at 60,454. And “[t]he major eﬀect of th[e]
        Final Rule,” in the Department’s view, was “that more domestic
        service workers w[ould] be protected by the FLSA’s minimum
        wage, overtime, and recordkeeping provisions.” Id.
                The preamble to the 2013 Final Rule addressed the statutory
        live-in service exemption found at 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(21), the provi-
        sion that governs here. In the preamble, the Department explained
        that a person is a live-in employee if she “resides on [her] em-
        ployer’s premises on a ‘permanent basis’ or for ‘extended periods
        of time.’” Id. at 60,474 (citing 29 C.F.R. § 785.23; U.S. Dep’t of La-
        bor, Wage & Hour Div., Field Operations Handbook § 31b20).
               The preamble then provided guidance on what the Depart-
        ment meant by the phrase “extended period of time.” First, the
        Department considers whether the employee spends 120 hours or
        more on her employer’s premises each week. Id. If so, the em-
        ployee “resides” there. For employees like Blanco who spend “less
        than 120 hours per week . . . working and sleeping on the em-
        ployer’s premises,” the Department has explained, they may

        12 The preamble was not codified in the Code of Federal Regulations.
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                       25

        “reside” on the premises for an “extended period of time” if they
        spend “ﬁve consecutive days or nights” there. Id.
               But as it turns out, the phrase “ﬁve consecutive days or
        nights” enjoys its own specialized meaning. To explain that phrase,
        the Department oﬀered examples. The 2013 Final Rule stated that
        “employees who reside on the employer’s premises ﬁve consecutive
        days from 9:00 a.m. Monday until 5:00 p.m. Friday (sleeping four
        straight nights on the premises) would be considered to reside on
        the employer’s premises for an extended period of time.” Id. And
        “[s]imilarly, employees who reside on an employer’s premises ﬁve
        consecutive nights from 9:00 p.m. Monday until 9:00 a.m. Saturday
        would also be considered to reside on their employer’s premises for
        an extended period of time.” Id.
              The Parents focus solely on the part of this illustration that
        mentions “ﬁve consecutive nights.” Then, noting that Blanco
        worked and slept at their house on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,
        Wednesday, and Thursday nights, they argue that she satisﬁes the
        deﬁnition because she spent “ﬁve consecutive days or nights there.”
               We see two problems with this argument. First, the statu-
        tory language of section 213(b)(21) is not ambiguous, so we don’t
        get to the Department’s interpretation (which is not itself a regula-
        tion). And second, even if we applied the Department’s interpre-
        tation, that would require the same conclusion that we reach:
        Blanco did not “reside” at the Parents’ house. We explain each an-
        swer in turn.
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        26                         Opinion of the Court                       22-13669

                Starting with whether the Department’s interpretation is en-
        titled to any deference, we ﬁnd it is not. As we’ve discussed, our
        analysis of the statutory text compels the conclusion that Blanco
        did not “reside[]” in the Parents’ house.
                And even if we considered the language in the 2013 Final
        Rule, we could not ignore that the key language appears only in the
        preamble to the 2013 Final Rule rather than in the Department’s
        regulations themselves. That distinction likely makes a diﬀerence.
        Deﬁnitions that appear in the preamble and the Federal Register
        but do not appear in the Code of Federal Regulations do not enjoy
        the force of law. AT&T Corp. v. FCC, 970 F.3d 344, 350 (D.C. Cir.
        2020) (“[T]he real dividing point between the portions of a ﬁnal
        rule with and without legal force is designation for publication in
        the Code of Federal Regulations.” (citation and internal quotation
        marks omitted)). 13 After all, any deﬁnitions that appear in only a
        preamble have not undergone the notice-and-comment process, so
        they do not necessarily reﬂect the agency’s considered position. See
        id. at 350–51; cf. Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555, 580 (2009) (declining
        to defer to agency’s preamble in part because it did not go through
        notice-and-comment).
             To be sure, courts have recognized that a regulation’s pre-
        amble can oﬀer “evidence of an agency’s contemporaneous

        13 As the District of Columbia Circuit has done, we “reserve[] a possibility that

        statements in a preamble may in some unique cases constitute binding, final
        agency action susceptible to judicial review.” AT&T Corp., 970 F.3d at 350
        (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
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        22-13669                   Opinion of the Court                               27

        understanding of its proposed rules.” Wy. Outdoor Council v. U.S.
        Forest Serv., 165 F.3d 43, 53 (D.C. Cir. 1999). And we have said that
        regulatory preambles can “provide[] some guidance” on the mean-
        ing of an agency’s regulations. Watkins v. City of Montgomery, 775
        F.3d 1280, 1284 (11th Cir. 2014). But we are unaware of any au-
        thority suggesting that the language an agency uses in a preamble
        should be awarded the same weight as if the agency chose to for-
        mally use the language in the regulation itself. 14 And without a def-
        inition of “resides” that appears in the Department’s codiﬁed regu-
        lations, we do not conclude that the preamble to the 2013 Final
        Rule is dispositive here.
               Still, though, we can consider the Department’s deﬁnition
        of what it means to “reside” and work at an employer’s premises
        for an “extended period of time” for any persuasive value it has.
        Because the Department’s interpretation applies the plain meaning
        of section 213(b)(21)’s text, we ﬁnd it has persuasive value.
               That brings us to the second reason we must reject the Par-
        ents’ argument that the Department’s construction of “resides”
        supports them. As we’ve noted, the Parents homed in on the

        14 The Parents suggest that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Bittner v.

        United States, 598 U.S. 85 (2023), supports their argument that the preamble to
        the 2013 Final Rule can receive controlling weight. In Bittner, the Court con-
        sidered a statute’s enumerated purpose in its statutory-interpretation analysis
        and noted that “[a] preamble, purpose clause, or recital is a permissible indica-
        tor of meaning.” 598 U.S. at 98 n.6 (citation omitted). But an agency regula-
        tion’s preamble—that has not been through notice and comment—is not like
        a statute’s enumerated preamble that Congress has affirmatively enacted.
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        28                        Opinion of the Court                     22-13669

        preamble’s language about “ﬁve consecutive nights” to argue that
        Blanco resided in their house. But this construction ignores part of
        the deﬁnition. It does not account for the context in which this
        phrase appears.
                The language “ﬁve consecutive days from 9:00 a.m. Monday
        until 5:00 p.m. Friday (sleeping four straight nights on the prem-
        ises)” refers to an uninterrupted period of four-and-(roughly)-one-
        half consecutive 24-hour days (so a shift of ﬁve straight days that
        includes the four consecutive nights in between). 15 In the same
        way, the “ﬁve consecutive nights” language contemplates an unin-
        terrupted period of four-and-(roughly)-one-half consecutive 24-
        hour days, but beginning with a night (so a shift of ﬁve consecutive
        nights that includes the four straight days in between). In other
        words, the preamble did not consider a period of “ﬁve consecutive
        nights” of duty, interrupted by the four intervening days oﬀ duty,
        to satisfy its illustration of the meaning of “an extended period of
        time,” and thus “resid[ing].”
             Given this language, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the De-
        partment asserted precisely this interpretation in an amicus brief it

        15 As a reminder, the 2013 Final Rule stated that “employees who reside on the

        employer’s premises five consecutive days from 9:00 a.m. Monday until 5:00
        p.m. Friday (sleeping four straight nights on the premises) would be consid-
        ered to reside on the employer’s premises for an extended period of time.” 78
        Fed. Reg. at 60,474. And similarly, “employees who reside on an employer’s
        premises five consecutive nights from 9:00 p.m. Monday until 9:00 a.m. Satur-
        day would also be considered to reside on their employer’s premises for an
        extended period of time.” Id.
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        22-13669              Opinion of the Court                       29

        ﬁled here. As the Department explained, this language from the
        preamble derives from a 1981 Opinion Letter from the Depart-
        ment’s Wage and Hour Division. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Wage &
        Hour Div., Opinion Letter WH-505, 1981 WL 179033 (Feb. 3, 1981)
        (“1981 Opinion Letter”). In that letter, the Department clariﬁed
        that an employee who spent an uninterrupted period of four days
        and ﬁve nights or four nights and ﬁve days (that is, a total of just
        under 120 hours straight) on the employer’s premises qualiﬁed as
        one who “reside[d]” there, if “the facilities oﬀered by the employer
        provide a home-like environment with private quarters separate
        from the residents of the” home. Id. at *1–2.
              In making this point, the Opinion Letter stated,
              Employees who are on duty f rom 9 a.m. Monday until
              5 p.m. Friday would also be considered to reside on
              the employer’s premises. Even though on duty for
              less than 120 hours, they are on duty for ﬁve consec-
              utive days (Monday through Friday). The fact that
              they sleep over only four nights does not matter. Sim-
              ilarly, employees who are on duty f rom 9 p.m. Monday
              until 9 a.m. Saturday would also be considered to re-
              side on their employer’s premises since they are on
              duty for ﬁve consecutive nights (Monday night
              through Friday night).
        Id. at *2 (emphases added). Here, Blanco did not remain at the Par-
        ents’ house during the days between her consecutive nights on
        duty. So under the preamble language, Blanco does not qualify as
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        30                        Opinion of the Court                       22-13669

        having spent “an extended period of time” at the Parents’ house.
        And as a result, she did not “reside” there. 16
                The Parents resist this conclusion. They cite other examples
        in Department regulatory materials for the proposition that an em-
        ployee can leave her employer’s premises while she is oﬀ duty and
        still “reside” there. And of course, that is true. But none of the
        examples the Parents cite help them.
              For starters, the Parents’ examples are not designed to assess
        when an employee “resides” at the employer’s premises. Rather,
        the Department created them to illustrate when an employee must
        be paid for hours they are not actually working. That issue is not
        before us.
               Take the ﬁrst example the Parents cite. It involves a live-in
        direct-care worker who assists her roommate in the morning,
        leaves the residence to attend classes, and then returns “home” to
        the premises in the evenings where she spends time further assist-
        ing her roommate but also spends time studying, watching televi-
        sion, and doing her laundry. 78 Fed. Reg. at 60,492. This example,
        which comes from a diﬀerent part of the preamble to the 2013 Fi-
        nal Rule, explains that “the hours spent engaged in personal pur-
        suits are considered bona ﬁde oﬀ-duty time and are not

        16 We need not consider whether the language of the Opinion Letter offers

        another reason why Blanco didn’t “reside” at the Parents’ house: the bed she
        shared with the other nannies was not “separate from” the quarters of the chil-
        dren she cared for. In any event, it’s clear for the other reasons we’ve identi-
        fied that Blanco did not “reside” at the Parents’ house.
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        22-13669                  Opinion of the Court                              31

        compensable hours.” Id. But that tells us nothing—and is not in-
        tended to tell us anything—about the issue we must address:
        whether Blanco “reside[d]” at the Parents’ house. And even if we
        could squeeze out some relevance to our issue, it wouldn’t help the
        Parents. Unlike in Blanco’s case, the hypothetical worker appar-
        ently lives full-time at the premises. And even if she doesn’t, it’s
        clear she spends signiﬁcant time in pursuit of her own interests,
        needs, and leisure there. Blanco did not.
                The Parents also invoke a Department Fact Sheet that envi-
        sions a live-in domestic service worker who assists her disabled em-
        ployer in the mornings, leaves the residence to work at a diﬀerent
        part-time job while her employer works at his own job, and then
        returns to the home with her employer where she provides addi-
        tional care until he retires for the evening. U.S. Dep’t of Labor,
        Wage & Hour Div., Fact Sheet #79D: Hours Worked Applicable to
        Domestic Service Employment Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
        (FLSA) (Apr. 2016). But again, this example contemplates that the
        “employee . . . lives on the employer’s premises.” Id. The Depart-
        ment oﬀers the example only to show that “[a]n employee who
        lives on the employer’s premises is not necessarily considered work-
        ing all the time he or she is on the premises.” Id. That’s not at issue
        here, so this example is not helpful. 17

        17 The Parents rely on several other regulatory documents that the Depart-

        ment has published over the past few decades, which they say support their
        argument that Blanco “reside[d]” in their house. These include the following:
        U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Wage & Hour Div., Administrator’s Interpretation No.
        2014-1 (Nov. 17, 2016); U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Wage & Hour Div., Field Assistance
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        32                        Opinion of the Court                     22-13669

               Besides these materials, the Parents cite the Eighth Circuit’s
        decision in Bouchard v. Regional Governing Board of Region V Mental
        Retardation Services, 939 F.2d 1323 (8th Cir. 1991). But Bouchard does
        not alter our determination. There, the employees not only
        worked at the employer’s facility but also spent oﬀ-duty time sleep-
        ing there. Id. at 1330–31. So the few hours they spent away from
        the employer’s premises each day did not change the conclusion
        that they resided at their employer’s facility. Id. As we’ve explained,
        Blanco did not spend any oﬀ-duty time at the Parents’ house. Ra-
        ther, she returned to her aunt’s apartment during the daytime
        hours.

        Bulletin No. 2016-1 (Apr. 25, 2016); U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Wage & Hour Div.,
        Fact Sheet #79B: Live-in Domestic Service Workers Under the Fair Labor
        Standards Act (FLSA) (Sept. 2013); U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Wage & Hour Div.,
        Field Operations Handbook, §§ 31b20, 25n02(c)(2); and U.S. Dep’t of Labor,
        Wage & Hour Div., Enforcement Letter, 1988 WL 614199 ( June 30, 1988). We
        do not discuss these documents further because they use similar language to
        the 2013 Final Rule. In fact, the 2013 Final Rule cited many of these docu-
        ments, and the Department noted there that it “did not propose any changes
        to the deﬁnition of live-in domestic service employee or otherwise discuss the
        requirements for meeting the live-in domestic service exemption[.]” 78 Fed.
        Reg. at 60,474. In other words, the Preamble to the 2013 Final Rule repeated
        the same standards the Department had used in the cited materials to deter-
        mine whether an employee is a live-in service worker. So for the same reasons
        the language in the 2013 Final Rule supports Blanco’s argument that Blanco
        did not reside in the Parents’ house, that same language in the other sources
        the Parents cite also counsels against their position.
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                         33

               In sum, we agree with the Department’s interpretation of
        the preamble to the 2013 Final Rule. But that’s because it is con-
        sistent with the plain meaning of the statutory text.
                And even if the statutory text were ambiguous—we don’t
        think it is for the reasons we’ve explained—we would value the De-
        partment’s interpretation only for its “power to persuade.” Skid-
        more v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134, 140 (1944). As the Supreme Court
        explained, the “general rule . . . is not to give deference to agency
        interpretations advanced for the ﬁrst time in legal briefs,” unless
        the interpretation reﬂects the agency’s “fair and considered judg-
        ment on the matter in question.” Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400,
        2417 n.6 (2019) (quoting Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 462 (1997)).
        Here, we would not defer to the Department’s position in its ami-
        cus brief but instead evaluate the weight of the Department’s judg-
        ment based on “the thoroughness evident in its consideration, the
        validity of its reasoning, [and] its consistency with earlier and later
        pronouncements,” among other factors. Skidmore, 323 U.S. at 140.
        The Department’s reliance on decades of its own formal interpre-
        tations of what it means to “reside” on an employer’s premises re-
        ﬂect the breadth and depth of its consideration of the issue before
        us. See id. So we would ﬁnd the Department’s brief to be persua-
        sive if we had to look past the statutory text.
               All told, the Department’s applicable regulations and inter-
        pretive documents establish that Blanco did not “reside[]” in the
        Parents’ house. So even under this analysis, Blanco would not be
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        34                     Opinion of the Court                22-13669

        exempt from overtime pay under the FLSA’s live-in service exemp-
        tion, and the Parents were not entitled to summary judgment.
               In sum, as to overtime pay for Blanco, we vacate the district
        court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Parents, reverse
        the district court’s denial of Blanco’s motion for summary judg-
        ment, and conclude Blanco is entitled to overtime pay.
                B. A factual dispute exists over whether the Parents
                              were Blanco’s employer.

              The Parents argue that, if Blanco is entitled to overtime pay,
        they are not responsible for paying her overtime wages because
        they were not her “employer” as the FLSA deﬁnes that term. See
        29 U.S.C. § 207 (requiring only an “employer” to pay overtime
        wages). Rather, the Parents assert, Blanco’s actual employers were
        the two LLCs: Nannies with Love and Amazing Gracie.
               The district court found a genuine dispute of material fact
        as to whether the Parents were Blanco’s employer. Blanco appeals
        that decision and asks us to enter summary judgment in her favor.
        We cannot do that because we agree with the district court.
               As we’ve explained, on review of an order on summary judg-
        ment, we apply the same standards as the district court. So on this
        separate issue we must view the record in the light most favorable
        to the Parents and make all inferences in their favor. Feliciano, 707
        F.3d at 1252. And when we do that, we must conclude that a gen-
        uine dispute of material fact exists and precludes summary judg-
        ment.
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                         35

               Under the FLSA, to “employ” means “to suﬀer or permit to
        work.” 29 U.S.C. § 203(g). And the deﬁnition of “employer” in-
        cludes “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an
        employer in relation to an employee.” Id. § 203(d). The Supreme
        Court has described the deﬁnition of “employ” as one with “strik-
        ing breadth.” Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U.S. 318, 326
        (1992) (citing Rutherford Food Corp. v. McComb, 331 U.S. 722, 728
        (1947)). We have said that the “statutory ‘suﬀer or permit to work’
        deﬁnition is one of the broadest possible delineations of the em-
        ployer-employee relationship.” Garcia-Celestino v. Ruiz Harvesting,
        Inc., 843 F.3d 1276, 1287 (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting 29 U.S.C.
        § 203(g)).
               “[U]nder this expansive approach, an entity is deemed to em-
        ploy a worker where, as a matter of ‘economic reality’ and under
        all the circumstances, the worker is ‘economically dependent’ on
        the hiring entity.” Id. (quoting Aimable v. Long & Scott Farms, 20 F.3d
        434, 439 (11th Cir. 1994)). Any label the parties may place on their
        relationship and any contracts that may govern that relationship do
        not control whether an employer-employee relationship exists.
        Scantland v. Jeﬀry Knight, Inc., 721 F.3d 1308, 1311 (11th Cir. 2013).
        Rather, we answer that question by homing in on “whether ‘the
        work done, in its essence, follows the usual path of an employee.’”
        Id. (quoting Rutherford Food, 331 U.S. at 729).
              To help us determine whether an entity qualiﬁes as an “em-
        ployer” under the FLSA’s “suﬀer or permit to work’ standard,” we
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        36                     Opinion of the Court                  22-13669

        consider the eight Aimable factors. Garcia-Celestino, 843 F.3d at
        1294. Those factors include the following:
               (1) the nature and degree of control of the workers; (2) the
               degree of supervision, direct or indirect of the work; (3) the
               power to determine the pay rates or the methods of pay-
               ment of the workers; (4) the right, directly or indirectly, to
               hire, ﬁre, or modify the employment conditions of the
               workers; (5) preparation of payroll and the payment of
               wages; (6) ownership of facilities where work occurred; (7)
               performance of a specialty job integral to the business; and
               (8) investment in equipment and facilities.
        Id. (alterations adopted) (citation and internal quotation marks
        omitted).
                We’ve also outlined ﬁve overarching principles that inform
        our application of the Aimable factors. First, “in joint employer
        cases, rather than ﬁxating on whether the worker is relatively more
        dependent on one putative employer than the other,” we “focus on
        the worker’s relationships with each putative employer.” Id. (cita-
        tions omitted). Second, “no one factor is dispositive” in this analy-
        sis. Id. Third, the weight we give to each of the eight Aimable fac-
        tors “depend[s] upon the extent to which it is probative of the
        worker’s economic dependence on the putative employer under
        the circumstances.” Id. Fourth, our review is not an exercise in
        addition and subtraction. Rather, we consider the evidence “holis-
        tically and qualitatively.” Id. Fifth and ﬁnally, we’ve recognized that
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        22-13669               Opinion of the Court                        37

        “common law principles of employment have no bearing” on the
        analysis. Id.
               Before we apply the Aimable factors to Blanco’s case, we re-
        iterate that, at this stage, we must view the record in the light most
        favorable to the Parents and make reasonable inferences in their
        favor. As we’ve emphasized, “[c]redibility determinations, the
        weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences
        from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge[.]” Strickland
        v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., 692 F.3d 1151, 1154 (11th Cir. 2012) (quoting
        Anderson, 477 U.S. at 255).
               The Parents disclaim any involvement with controlling, su-
        pervising, hiring, ﬁring, and paying the nannies. Dr. Finch (the chil-
        dren’s mother) testiﬁed at her deposition that she could not recall
        giving any of the nannies any directions about how to care for her
        children. Nor did Dr. Finch know any details about Blanco’s re-
        sponsibilities and duties within the house. The only job require-
        ment, from Dr. Finch’s perspective, was that an adult would come
        to the house to care for the children.
               Dr. Finch also swore in her declaration that she “did not con-
        trol or supervise Ms. Blanco to any meaningful degree.” She at-
        tested that she “outsourced all aspects of the nanny operations in-
        cluding scheduling, payroll and regulatory compliance” to the
        LLCs. Dr. Finch’s only role, she claimed, was to “indicate[] to the
        agency the coverage [she] needed (i.e., what hours [she] needed a
        nanny).” But she “did not direct who among the nannies appeared
        at any particular time, or what speciﬁc duties each nanny had (such
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        38                     Opinion of the Court                 22-13669

        as preparing meals, bathing, dressing for school or for bed, etc.).”
        The Parents also represented that they “had no operational control
        over, and knew little about” Amazing Gracie.
               Nor did the Parents “determine the rate and method of pay-
        ment each week,” according to Dr. Finch. And they did not know
        how much each nanny was paid. Dr. Finch attested that she gener-
        ally paid Amazing Gracie one lump sum of around $2,400 each
        week without any knowledge of which nanny received which
        amount.
               Dr. Finch also disclaimed any involvement in hiring and ﬁr-
        ing Blanco. In fact, at her deposition, Dr. Finch testiﬁed that she
        did not know how Blanco came to work for the family. And she
        said that Blanco’s departure stemmed from her own abandonment
        of the job.
                But other record evidence creates disputes about the Par-
        ents’ degree of control over the nannies. For example, Grace
        Trask—one of the nannies and the principal of Amazing Gracie—
        testiﬁed at her deposition that she did not tell the other nannies
        what to do or otherwise supervise them, and that she did not have
        the right to discipline or ﬁre them. Trask also testiﬁed that the Par-
        ents gave instructions about caring for the children, such as which
        activities were scheduled and which tasks needed to be done
        around the house. And though Trask knew that she paid Blanco
        $880 per week, she did not know how that amount was calculated.
        Rather, Trask explained, it was simply the same amount that
        Blanco had been making previously.
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        22-13669                Opinion of the Court                           39

               Still, some undisputed facts exist about an eight-week period
        in which the nannies were not aﬃliated with an LLC. At some
        point, Toribio and her LLC, Nannies with Love, which ostensibly
        employed the other nannies as well, parted ways with the Parents.
        When that happened, the nannies ceased their aﬃliation with Nan-
        nies with Love. And an eight-week period ensued in which no LLC
        even possibly employed the nannies who continued to work for the
        Parents, including Blanco and Gomez. During that period, Dr.
        Finch acknowledges that she paid the nannies directly by personal
        check. 18 And over that interval, the only possible supervisors for
        the nannies were the Parents themselves. That regime continued
        until the Parents hired Trask and Trask formed Amazing Gracie.
        Even then, though, the Parents entirely funded Amazing Gracie,
        and the LLC neither had any other clients nor retained any proﬁts.
               In short, the Parents claim that all the nannies at ﬁrst worked
        exclusively for Nannies with Love until the remaining nannies sep-
        arated from Nannies with Love and continued to work for the Par-
        ents. Then, after an eight-week gap in which the Parents were re-
        sponsible for supervising and paying the nannies, a new entity—
        Amazing Gracie—emerged, hired both Blanco and Gomez, and be-
        came their exclusive employer. At that point, according to the Par-
        ents, Amazing Gracie assumed all oversight of the nanny operation

        18 The Parents—who are both licensed attorneys—say that, around this time,

        they researched the FLSA’s overtime requirements and determined that
        Blanco was exempt under the live-in service exemption.
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        40                        Opinion of the Court                     22-13669

        and the Parents once again removed themselves and transferred
        childcare responsibilities to an entity they “knew little about.”
                As the Parents tell it, they did no independent vetting of the
        nannies who entered their home to watch their children, gave no
        directions as to the nannies’ duties and responsibilities, and paid lit-
        tle to no attention to the nannies’ work in their home. And while
        the Parents acknowledge that, for an eight-week period, they paid
        the nannies directly, they maintain that this was the “lone excep-
        tion” to their general practice of detachment from the nannies’
        day-to-day care for their children.
                No matter which version of the events may seem more plau-
        sible, under the summary-judgment standard, it is not our role to
        assess the credibility of the Parents’ assertions. Butler, 41 F.4th at
        1334. If the Parents submit evidence that raises a genuine dispute
        of material fact, then we must send the question to a jury to eval-
        uate the parties’ credibility. See id. Here, the Parents have submit-
        ted sworn testimony and declarations, under penalty of perjury, in-
        dicating that they had minimal oversight over the nannies’ care for
        their children. So we must conclude that a genuine dispute of ma-
        terial fact exists about whether the Parents exercised control and
        supervision over the nannies’ work in their house. And a jury must
        decide whether the Parents were Blanco’s employer and are there-
        fore responsible for paying her overtime compensation. 19

        19 Because a genuine dispute of material fact exists about whether the Parents

        were Blanco’s employer, we need not and do not address the Department’s
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        22-13669                   Opinion of the Court                               41

               Before concluding, we brieﬂy address the parties’ conten-
        tions regarding damages. In the district court, the Parents argued
        that Blanco is not entitled to liquidated damages under 29 U.S.C.
        § 216(b). They invoked the FLSA defense that applies if the em-
        ployer “shows to the satisfaction of the court that the act or omis-
        sion giving rise to such action was in good faith and that [the em-
        ployer] had reasonable grounds for believing that his act or omis-
        sion was not a violation of the [FLSA] . . . .” 29 U.S.C. § 260. If, on
        remand, the district court ultimately considers whether the Parents
        acted in good faith under § 260, it should evaluate the credibility of,
        and if appropriate, account for the Parents’ representations to the
        court that they eﬀectively had no supervision or control over the
        nannies’ care for their children. 20
                                       IV.     Conclusion

               For all these reasons, we conclude that Blanco did not “re-
        side” in the Parents’ house and that she is entitled to overtime pay.
        As a result, we must vacate the grant of summary judgment to the
        Parents on that issue. But because a genuine dispute of material
        fact remains as to who must pay that overtime—that is, whether
        the Parents were Blanco’s “employer”—we aﬃrm the district

        argument that the Parents and the LLCs were Blanco’s joint employers. That
        question also turns on a genuine dispute of material fact.
        20 The cover page of Blanco’s brief indicates that she seeks to bring this action

        on behalf of all employees similarly situated under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Because
        no others are plaintiffs and Blanco has not developed this point in any of her
        briefing, we do not consider or discuss it further.
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        42                  Opinion of the Court              22-13669

        court’s denial of summary judgment in favor of Blanco on that
        “employer” issue. We remand for further proceedings consistent
        with this opinion.
             REVERSED AND VACATED IN PART; AFFIRMED IN
        PART; and REMANDED IN PART.
USCA11 Case: 22-13669     Document: 54-1     Date Filed: 01/24/2024   Page: 43 of 43

        22-13669          HULL, J., Specially Concurring                 1

        HULL, Circuit Judge, specially concurring in part:
                I concur in the Court’s opinion in full, except for Section
        III.A.2 concerning the Department of Labor’s (the “Department”)
        “regulations” and materials discussed in that Section. In my view,
        the statutory text of the Fair Labor Standards Act, discussed in
        Section III.A.1, is unambiguous and dispositive of the issue on
        appeal. I would not give any deference or persuasive value to the
        preamble of the Department’s 2013 Final Rule or other materials
        discussed in Section III.A.2.