Washington Supreme Court Just Took Aim at Another Wage-and-Hour Exemption. Healthcare Employers Should Pay Attention.

Seyfarth Synopsis:  In a July 9, 2026 ruling, the Washington Supreme Court struck down Washington’s live-in caregiver exemption for adult family home caregivers, but the bigger story is not about live-in caregivers – it’s about the Court continuing to build a constitutional framework for attacking long-standing wage-and-hour exemptions. Healthcare employers should expect plaintiffs’ attorneys to start looking for the next target.

What Happened?

On July 9, 2026, the Washington Supreme Court issued its decision in Bolina v. AssureCare Adult Home LLC, holding that the Minimum Wage Act’s live-in worker exemption violates Article I, Section 12 of the Washington Constitution as applied to live-in caregivers working in adult family homes.

The plaintiffs were caregivers who lived and worked in adult family homes and alleged they routinely worked exceptionally long hours, received interrupted sleep, suffered musculoskeletal injuries from lifting residents, were exposed to infectious diseases, and faced workplace violence from residents. They challenged former RCW 49.46.010(3)(j), which exempted live-in employees from the protections of the Minimum Wage Act.

Relying heavily on its prior decision in Martinez-Cuevas, the Court held that:

• Live-in caregiving at adult family homes constitutes a dangerous occupation or one deleterious to health;
• Article II, section 35 creates a fundamental right to legislative protections for workers in dangerous occupations;
• The Minimum Wage Act serves as one such legislative protection;
• The live-in exemption granted employers a privilege and immunity from otherwise applicable labor standards; and
• Administrative convenience and compensation-accounting concerns did not constitute a reasonable basis for denying those protections.

The Court therefore affirmed summary judgment declaring the exemption unconstitutional as applied to the caregivers before it.

Why This Decision Matters

The most important aspect of Bolina is not its impact on caregivers. It is the Court’s continued development of a constitutional framework for attacking employment-law exemptions.

Historically, wage-and-hour litigation focused on whether a statute applied and whether an employer complied with it. Bolina follows Martinez-Cuevas in shifting the inquiry to whether the statute itself can survive constitutional scrutiny. Under that framework, an employee may argue not simply that an employer misapplied an exemption, but that the exemption itself is unconstitutional because it deprives workers in dangerous occupations of protections that the Washington Constitution requires the legislature to provide.

That is a fundamentally different, and potentially far more powerful, argument.

That broader conception of occupational danger may invite future challenges involving healthcare workers, direct-care staff, behavioral health personnel, home-care workers, and other occupations involving significant physical or psychological demands. While the Court’s holding is limited to adult family home caregivers, plaintiffs’ attorneys will almost certainly view the opinion as an invitation to test the limits of article II, section 35 in other industries.

A Particularly Important Development for Healthcare Employers

Healthcare providers should pay especially close attention.

The Court repeatedly focused on risks that are common throughout the healthcare continuum: lifting and transferring patients, exposure to communicable diseases, workplace violence, overnight work, fatigue, and irregular schedules.

Those characteristics are not unique to adult family homes. As a result, healthcare employers should expect increased scrutiny of compensation structures, scheduling practices, exempt classifications, and any labor-model assumptions that depend on unique statutory treatment. Although Bolina does not invalidate any exemption beyond the one before the Court, it supplies the analytical framework future plaintiffs’ counsel are likely to use.

The Court Was Unmoved by Economic Concerns

Another noteworthy aspect of the decision is the Court’s rejection of arguments focused on operational realities and economic burden.

The employer argued that live-in caregiving arrangements create unique practical and accounting challenges and that requiring full MWA compliance could have substantial financial consequences for adult family homes. The Court was not persuaded, concluding that administrative convenience and potential economic impact are not reasonable grounds for withholding constitutionally required worker protections from employees engaged in dangerous occupations.

For employers, that may be the most concerning aspect of the opinion. Once the Court determines that a constitutional worker protection is implicated, traditional business justifications may carry significantly less weight than they would in ordinary employment litigation.

What Employers Should Do Now

Employers do not need to panic. But they should pay attention. Now is a good time to:

• Revisit compensation models that depend on statutory exemptions.
• Review pay practices for employees working extended, overnight, or irregular schedules.
• Evaluate classifications involving physically demanding direct-care positions.
• Ensure timekeeping systems accurately capture hours worked.
• Identify employment practices that could become constitutional test cases.

Most importantly, employers should stop assuming that long-standing statutory exemptions are untouchable.

Bottom Line

The immediate impact of Bolina will fall on adult family homes. The long-term impact could be much broader.

The Washington Supreme Court is signaling that it is willing to scrutinize employment-law exemptions through the lens of constitutional worker protections, not just traditional statutory interpretation.

The real question for healthcare employers is not whether Bolina affects your workforce, it's whether your compensation model relies on a statutory exemption that could become the next constitutional target.