Landmark Authors Brief On Behalf of National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and International Foodservice Distributors Association In Supreme Court

This week, Landmark’s attorneys authored a brief in E.M.D. Sales v. Carrera, a Supreme Court case that will determine the standard of proof courts are to apply in litigating exemption applicability under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).  This case involves a dispute where a group of employees sought overtime compensation under the FLSA.  Their employer, E.M.D. Sales (an independent food distribution company), argued these employees were exempt from the FLSA’s overtime provisions because they were outside salespeople.

The District Court and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the employees fell outside the FLSA’s overtime exemption for outside salespeople and were entitled to overtime pay.  The lower courts required E.M.D. Sales to prove the applicability of the exemption by “clear and convincing evidence.”  This high evidentiary burden is difficult to surmount in fact-intensive labor disputes.

Unlike the Fourth Circuit, most other judicial circuits use the lower evidentiary standard “preponderance of the evidence” when determining whether a class of employees qualifies for an exemption under the FLSA.  The preponderance of the evidence standard is the default evidentiary standard for typical civil cases involving monetary disputes.

Subjecting employers to a heightened standard of proof means that businesses cannot give certain classes of employees such as outside salespeople the flexibility necessary to do their jobs.    Without this flexibility, businesses will suffer as they cannot operate profitably without an outside salesforce.

Landmark’s brief focuses on the important and unique role that outside salespeople play in the corporate environment.  Since the passage of the FLSA, outside salespeople have been exempt from the FLSA’s overtime and minimum-wage provisions.  Employers should be subject to the same evidentiary standards as typical litigants when establishing whether a given group of employees falls within the outside sales exemption.  They should not be punished for simply having a business that falls under the jurisdiction of courts that use unfair standards when litigating labor disputes.

Read our brief here!