The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in Maestas v. Day & Zimmerman, LLC on Wednesday, January 4, 2012.

The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s decision. Petitioners were officers in a private security force that protects Los Alamos National Laboratory. They contend that their employer, Respondent, improperly classified them as exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The parties disagree over which of Petitioners’ “job duties is ‘primary,’ a determination essential to the classification of their positions under FLSA.” The district court concluded that all Petitioners were exempt executive employees and granted summary judgment to Respondent.

The Court disagreed with the district court’s reasoning. “In order to fall under the executive, administrative, or combination exemptions to FLSA’s overtime protections, an employee’s primary duty must be managerial or administrative, or a combination of the two. . . . However, if an employee’s primary duty is related to emergency response or law enforcement, the employee is entitled to FLSA’s protections.” The Court held that a dispute over the classification of job duties presents a question of fact rather than an issue of law, and that “an employee who supervises subordinates while also conducting front-line law enforcement work performs a non-managerial task. Because there remains a genuine dispute as to whether three of the plaintiffs had this task as their primary duty, summary judgment was proper only against [one] plaintiff  and improper as to the other plaintiffs.”