PricewaterhouseCoopers Will Go To Trial In California Overtime Case

Yesterday’s unanimous decision by the Ninth Circuit reflects straightforward principles of statutory construction – the Court found that the statute at issue means what it says; that exemption from the overtime provisions of the California Labor Code depends on an employee’s actual job duties, and that professionals in accounting, law, medicine, and other recognized professions are not categorically ineligible for exemption because they have not yet obtained their professional license.

The Ninth Circuit’s decision is consistent with prevailing practices in the learned professions, where all professional employees are routinely and appropriately compensated on a salaried basis.

It’s not clear now how the case will actually be litigated once it goes back to the District Court. But, in my opinion, if it turns out that the jury has to come up with a solution that addresses the various duties and level of discretion and judgement potentially excercised by each member of the class, it’s going be a long trial.

Forcing the use of an employee’s actual job duties to determine, ultimately, whether he is exempt, or not, for overtime seems to me to place an enormous burden on the accounting firms. In this case, for example, there are more than 2000 members in the class – and that’s only the unlicensed attest (audit) associates in California. This is the category of employees who’ve just graduated from college to those with approximately three years of experience. If you expand that to all unlicensed attest professionals in California alone you might increase that number five-fold.

Although their actual job duties may not change on an hourly or daily basis, non-managerial unlicensed audit staff – some with up to seven or eight years of experience – are often treated as a pooled resource, assigned where needed for the length of time it takes for them to complete a discrete task for a particular client. For one engagement that may mean two weeks of scanning and photocopying. On another engagement, the junior professional’s time could be spent posting numbers to a spreadsheet and comparing them to prior year amounts. Then, after more experience and training, a junior professional may be asked to gather and evaluate documentation from the client as audit evidence.

The plaintiffs are disappointed with the Appeals Court’s decision.

Not So Typical in Portland: Bike First NW: Lose the Training ...

It is a summer ritual. We trim up the backyard, start regularly scooping up the doogie doo, hose out the long-suffering kid-pool, buy a Costco-sized (yes, I use 'Costco' as a verb) bottle of sunscreen that gets lost by July 4th, and purchase Isaac a new, bigger bike to fit his new, bigger frame. Does the helmet still fit (always 'no' - he is wearing an adult sized one now. Thank god I didn't have to push that noggin through my nether-regions when he was born)? Does it come with training wheels? Good. And then the bike rusts, unused and unloved in the backyard. To be fare, it has good company - my big pink cruiser sits beside it, similarly avoided. My husbands street bike taunts it from near the gate. Screw you, you yellow Bike Gallery Snob! What even makes this more tragic is that I live 4 blocks from a major bike highway (N. Williams) in one of the most bike-obsessed cities in the U.S. I also don't hike and will only camp if there is a working toilet within 50 yards, so yeah, I am a BAAADDD (native) Oregonian. Anyway, we do try to get him on the bike with the training wheels. But he just hates it. He freaks out in the most Isaac-of-ways, usually involving screeching "I'm going to die!" if you don't hold on the the handlebars and walk (never have to run) alongside him. And note, this is WITH the training wheels. We would pull it out once a day for a week, get burned out and maybe bring it out once a week, and then by July 15th, it was locked up until we donated it to GoodWill. Until Spring bloomed in our hearts, and with renewed vigor, we bought the next one. So what was wrong? Well, his balance was horrid, a combination of anxiety and nature. This kid crashes into the living room walls, which have not moved in 110 years and are still in the same location as when he moved in at 5 days old. He has issues paying attention at times, especially when trying to combat his anxiety, and is notorious for not looking where he is going. He further more was very stiff in his hips, and had a hard time pushing the pedals. We did not give up, but when faced with kid who rises to challenges each and every day, it became to hard to push one more in his face. The camp started this week, Monday. Isaac was hesitant, telling me over and over that he "wasn't ready". We signed in at Jefferson HS where the camp was located this summer, put his name tag on, and had a snack and quiet time before going in. Still, he wasn't ready.

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