http://goo.gl/N8tKlg
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Home Care Association of America v. Weil, ending a long-running legal saga and putting to rest any question of whether home care workers will be afforded minimum wage and overtime protections.
At issue is the Fair Labor Standards Act’s so-called companionship exemption. Home care workers were for decades considered “companion” workers and so were exempt from overtime and minimum wage rules that applied to most other domestic workers. This changed when the Department of Labor published a new rule in October 2013.
Home care industry associations pushed back against the new rule in court, winning at the Federal District Court level before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the DOL’s move; the new rule took effect in October 2015, though full enforcement was delayed.