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Florida Atlantic University *

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Business

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Jan 9, 2024

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Dylan Cicarelli HFT3603 - 0002.fa23 Chapter 17-19: Any Employment Discrimination/FLSA Issue December 3, 2023 Case/Article Title Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt Hyperlink to Case/Article https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-984 Summary On May 2, 2022, Michael J. Hewitt sued Helix Energy Solutions et al. due to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Hewitt believes that he is not getting compensated as he should because he is working overtime and not getting compensated because the company is saying he is being very well compensated with his normal salary that he should be satisfied even if he is working for more than 40 hours. Helix is saying that since he is a “highly compensated employee” that he should be exempt from overtime pay. Hewitt argued that since he was paid a fixed annual salary, but paid a daily rate, then he is entitled overtime pay regardless of how much he is being paid. Helix originally won the case in district court, but lost at the Supreme Court. Hewitt won because he was not paid on a salary basis and was thus entitled to overtime pay. Chapter Content In these chapters, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) was discussed. This correlates with this case since Hewitt is suing because he feels the company is violating the FLSA and he is not being compensated accordingly. Under the FLSA, an employee is considered a bona fide executive excluded from the FLSA’s protections if the employee meets three tests: (1) the salary basis test (employee receives a predetermined and fixed salary that does not vary with the amount of time worked), (2) the salary level test (preset salary to exceed a specified amount), and (3) the job duties test (if the employee has responsibility for managing the enterprise, directing other employees, and hiring and firing other employees). In this case, Hewitt definitely satisfied 2 and 3, but the true question was number 1 whether he was paid salary or
not. Since he was paid on a daily basis and not based on an annual salary, number 1 technically was not satisfied. However, the question was if his daily compensation was considered enough to be exempt from overtime pay. The district judge determined that he should make at least $963 per week for any week he worked, which was enough income for him to be a bona fide executive. However, the Supreme Court reversed the decision because he was paid daily and not annually, which means he should be entitled. Recommendations It is employees and organizations to be very specific as to how much they are paying their employees. It is important to have the writing written correctly if they do not want to owe the employee any more money than they are already paying them. This is a situation where the employee and the organization can both be experiencing a loss. Even if the company believed that the employee was making plenty of money, the company should have switched how the employee was paid, so they do not have to pay them even more. Transparency is very important in the workplace.
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