On Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas (Sherman Division) entered a preliminary injunction in State of Nevada et al. v. United States Department of Labor et al., Civil Action No. 4:16-CV-00731, blocking the U.S. Department of Labor’s Final Rule, which would have increased the minimum salary for “white collar” exempt employees from $455 per week ($23,660 annually) to $921 per week ($47,892 annually) and created an automatic update mechanism to adjust the minimum salary level every three years. The Final Rule was to be effective on December 1, 2016.
Case Background
Earlier in 2016, Nevada and twenty (20) other U.S. states filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”), the Wage and Hour Division of the DOL, and their agents, challenging the legality of the DOL’s authority to enact the Final Rule. On October 12, 2016, the States filed an Emergency Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. Amicus briefs were filed and a preliminary injunction hearing was held last week on November 16, 2016.Continue Reading BREAKING NEWS: Nationwide Injunction Blocks the U.S. DOL’s Final Rule That Nearly Doubled the Minimum Salary for Exempt “White Collar” Employees