At 47 pages, U.S. District Court Judge Hall’s decision last week in Costello v. Home Depot USA (download here) denying an employer’s motion for summary judgment in an overtime case, isn’t exactly a light read. 

More Saving, More Doing? Not so with litigation

She is, of course, not to blame. The case is complicated and has a “somewhat convoluted procedural history” because it was first filed in 2004 (!) and certified (and then decertified) as a collective action that alleged that Home Depot misclassified mechandising assistant store managers as exempt.

But after nine years of litigation, the Court was finally asked to decide whether Home Depot properly classified these two of these assistant store managers as exempt from overtime pay. 

The position of “assistant store managers” has been the source of lots of litigation over the last decade.  So it’s worth taking a look at what the court did.

Procedurally, it denied the motion for summary judgment saying that there were issues of material fact that precluded the granting of the motion. In other words, the case has to be decided by a fact-finder and jury, and not by the court itself on the papers.

Substantively, the crux of the case centers on whether the employee’s “primary duty” was “management of the enterprise”. 

As to one employee, the emplioyer argued that the employee:

(1) ensured his departments were properly staffed; (2) planned the work to be done in each department; (3) delegated work to his subordinates and followed up to make sure it was done in a timely and correct manner; (4) ensured his subordinates were trained, both for their current position and so they would be ready to advance to the next level; (5) ensured proper merchandise was ordered; (6) inspected his departments for safety violations; (7) resolved employee and customer complaints; (8) made recommendations regarding annual raises for his employees; (9) counseled associates on disciplinary issues; (10) recognized his subordinates for exceptional performance; and (11) devised strategies to improved department sales.

Sounds like it should be enough to win the case, right? The employee countered by saying that “while he performed many of these tasks, in many instances — particularly related to hiring, firing, and scheduling decisions — ultimate decision-making power and discretion lay elsewhere.”  The Court actually says that these facts do indeed lean in favor of the employer, not the employee.  

So why did the court still reject the employer’s motion?

Because taking other factors like whether the employee spent a substantial amount of time performing non-exempt work, and whether the exempt duties the employee performed were of relative importance to the job, led the court to the conclusion that there were genuine disputes as to what actually occurred.

No doubt the decision is frustrating to the employer (and other employers) who laid out a number of facts that even the court — at times — found persuasive.

But ultimately, the case is an important one for all employers to understand exactly what factors a court will look at in determining whether assistant store managers are exempt, and how important it is for employers to have its rationale locked in with supporting documents and affidavits.

These types of inquiries are very fact-specific. But even here, where the employer seemed to spell out lots of details to support its argument, sometimes, a lot of evidence isn’t good enough.

Costello v. Home Depot