Anthony Kelly v. The City of Alexandria

Alexandria, Virginia employment law lawyers represented the Plaintiff who sued on a Fair Labor Standards Act violation theory.

The Plaintiffs, Current and former battalion chiefs for the City of Alexandria Fire Department, sued the City seeking payment of unpaid overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 201–19, requires employers to pay non-
exempt employees time-and-a-half when they work more than 40 hours in a week or—for fire protection employees with 28-day work periods (as here)—more than 212 hours in 28 days. Id. § 207(a)(1), (k); 29 C.F.R. § 553.201(a). Department of Labor regulations exempt “highly compensated employees” from this time-and-a-half overtime-pay requirement. 29 C.F.R. § 541.601(a); 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(7). But the exemption applies only to employees who are paid on a salary basis. 29 C.F.R. § 541.601(b)(1); Helix Energy Sols. Grp., Inc. v. Hewitt, 598 U.S. 39, 44–45 (2023).

602(a) applies to employees paid on a weekly (or less frequent) basis. Helix, 598
U.S. at 56–57. They are paid on a salary basis when they receive “at least part of [their] compensation through a preset weekly (or less frequent) salary” that isn’t “subject to reduction because of exactly how [much they] worked.” Id. at 46.
604(b) applies to employees paid on an hourly, daily, or shift basis. Id. at 56–57.
They too are paid on a salary basis if the employer guarantees “the employee at least $455 each week (the minimum salary level), regardless of the number of hours, days or shifts worked,” and the guarantee is “roughly equivalent to [their] usual earnings at the assigned hourly, daily or shift rate for [their] normal scheduled workweek.” Id. at 47 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.604(b)).

The district court granted summary judgment for the City, concluding that the chiefs were exempt from the Act’s overtime-pay requirements under the “highly compensated employee” exemption.

Affirmed