Laura Maechtlen and Jonathan Martin Published in The Recorder
“Second District Muffs Wage Ruling”

Laura Maechtlen and Jonathan Martin’s article, “Second District Muffs Wage Ruling,” was published in the September 14, 2007 issue of The Recorder. Their article criticizes the August decision by the Second District Court of Appeals in Harris v. Superior Court, and they urge the California Supreme Court to overturn this decision.

The issue at stake in Harris is the “administrative exemption” to overtime for California employees who meet certain criteria. Laura and Jonathan note that the court looked to only one of the criteria for the administrative exemption and mistakenly viewed the “administrative/production worker dichotomy” analytical tool as a black-and-white test, thereby concluding “that every job must be either a nonexempt ‘production’ job or an exempt ‘administrative’ job.” Laura and Jonathan remark that, “This logic is similar to a person reasoning that because he is not green, and squirrels are not green, he must be a squirrel.”

Laura and Jonathan conclude that, “In its understandable desire to protect those who genuinely should be entitled to overtime, the court stretched the concept of ‘production’ work far beyond its logical limits, and in doing so essentially destroyed the administrative exemption.… We can only hope that the Supreme Court will seize the opportunity to reject the court of appeal’s reasoning and restore the long-understood meaning of the administrative exemption.”