Labor & Employment Law

The Vagaries of the Professional Exemption Continue

By Mark Tabakman

In a January 21, 2010 posting in the New York Labor and Employment Law Report, Joseph Dole reported on a case entitled Young v Cooper Cameron Corporation, recently issued by the Second Circuit.  The case concerned the applicability of the professional exemption to an individual performing engineering design work on sophisticated equipment.  While he had twenty years of experience, he only had a high-school degree.  The court ruled that the employer incorrectly classified him as exempt.

 The issue rose and fell on the absence of a college or higher degree in a specialized field of training.  To me, this is the completely wrong result.  The proposed new professional regulations had sought to allow a claim of professional exemption even without the "degree," if experience and education were deemed to fit the exemption.

The final regulations stepped back from this and hearkened back to the old tests.  They do leave a crack open, attesting that there is the "possibility" that an individual may fit the professional exemption as an attorney, for example, even if he did not go to law school, like, for example, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.  The regulations, however, envision this as a one in a million occurrence and I think, especially in the computer and technology fields,. experience of a professional nature is often supplanting the straight, "pure" education.

In fact, I understand that Bill Gates did not finish college.  Under the rationale of this case and the current FLSA regulations, this billionaire would be found to be non-exempt and entitled to overtime. 

Funny, ain't' it?

Full post as published by Wage & Hour - Development & Highlights on January 25, 2010 (boomark / email).