Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

On December 22, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia vacated a new U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) regulation, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2015, which eliminated an exemption from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for employees who provide home companionship and live-in domestic services. Home Care Ass'n of Am. v. Weil, No. 14-cv-967 (D.D.C. Dec. 22, 2014). The DOL's new regulation was controversial not only because it reversed years of precedent under the FLSA, but because many questioned whether the DOL had exceeded its authority in promulgating this regulation.

On December 15, 2011, the Department of Labor issued proposed rule changes that would extend the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime protections to the roughly two million in-home caregivers providing services to the elderly and infirm.  If enacted, the changes would eliminate the FLSA’s longstanding companionship and live-in domestic service exemptions, and likely lead to a major change in the in-home care worker industry.