LIBA Update: DOL’s New Overtime Rule Blocked by Federal Court

On November 22, 2016, federal judge Amos Mazzant, a President Obama appointee, gave employers a Thanksgiving gift by issuing a preliminary injunction enjoining the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing its Final Rule increasing the minimum salary level for exempt employees from $455 per week to $913 per week. The new rule was to take effect December 1, 2016. The ruling was made in a case filed by the State of Nevada and twenty other states, including the State of Nebraska, along with 50 other business organizations which challenged the Final Rule in a companion case which was consolidated with the States’ case, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The injunction is nationwide and now allows businesses to put on hold any changes they intended to implement to comply with the new rule. It is expected that the judge’s ruling will be appealed by the Department of Labor. However, if there is such an appeal it may be dismissed by the Trump administration, when the new president takes office in January. – By Jerry L. Pigsley, LIBA General Counsel