Plano Chamber of Commerce, Restaurant Law Center, Texas Restaurant Association, et al. v. Julie Su, et al.

Issue

Whether the Department of Labor’s 2024 Overtime Rule is unlawful because it once again makes an employee’s duties, functions, or tasks irrelevant if the employee’s salary falls below the new minimum salary level and makes salary rather than an employee’s duties determinative of whether a ‘bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity employee’ should be exempt from overtime pay.

May 22, 2024

On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, the Restaurant Law Center, the Texas Restaurant Association, the Plano Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of national business groups filed a lawsuit seeking to vacate the Department of Labor’s 2024 Overtime Final Rule. In the filing, the coalition argues that by issuing a rule raising the minimum salary for the executive, administrative or professional exemption far beyond a level which DOL is permitted to adopt, and including an unlawful triennial “escalator” provision, DOL is acting in defiance of a previous decision by the Court.

August 29, 2024

The business plaintiffs filed their Response to DOL’s Cross Motion for Summary Judgment and Reply to DOL’s Response to our Summary Judgment Motion. In our brief, we restate the core administrative principle that an agency may not rewrite clear statutory terms to suit its own sense of how the statute should operate. Furthermore, we argue that the Administrative Procedure Act directs a reviewing court to hold unlawful and set aside DOL regulations that exceed DOL’s statutory authority and, in those cases, universal vacatur is both required and appropriate.

September 12, 2024

The Restaurant Law Center and the other business plaintiffs filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority pointing out that a recent decision by the Fifth Circuit supports our argument that the 2024 Overtime Rule exceeds DOL’s statutory authority because the thresholds contained in the 2024 Rule “effectively eliminate” consideration of employees’ duties. In other words, DOL may have general authority to consider salary in a test for exemption but does not have authority to adopt a threshold that effectively bases exemption on salary alone.