By a 6-3 vote, the justices sided with Michael Hewitt, who was a “tool-pusher” supervising 12 to 14 employees on an offshore oil rig. Hewitt was paid a minimal of $963 for any day he labored as a part of an uncommon schedule on the oil rig.

Between 2014 and 2017, Hewitt was paid greater than $200,000 a yr from his employer, Helix Power Options Group. However Hewitt earned no additional time, even when he labored greater than 80 hours every week, as generally occurred.

Enterprise teams had advised the courtroom {that a} ruling for Hewitt would flip the Truthful Labor Requirements Act on its head by encouraging extremely educated and well-paid employees to sue below a regulation that was meant to handle substandard wages and dangerously lengthy hours.

In an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the courtroom held that Hewitt certified for additional time pay below the FLSA, regardless of a provision of the regulation that exempts “bona fide executives.” Beneath Labor Division rules, staff making greater than $100,000 a yr typically don’t must be paid additional time.

Hewitt prevailed, Kagan wrote, as a result of the corporate paid him by the day and never weekly. The regulation at difficulty “applies solely to staff paid by the week (or longer); it isn’t met when an employer pays an worker by the day, as Helix paid Hewitt,” Kagan wrote.

In dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh lamented the courtroom’s “head-scratching assertion” that Hewitt wasn’t assured a weekly minimal in any week he labored at the same time as he was “assured to obtain $963 for any day that he labored.” Justice Samuel Alito joined Kavanaugh’s dissent and Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented individually.

The case is Helix Power Options Group v. Hewitt, 21-984.