On April 2, 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Encino Motorcars v. Navarro that car dealership service advisors (individuals that consult and sell customers on servicing solutions at car dealerships), are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) overtime requirements. While this is certainly a win for car dealerships, the biggest win for all employers is the Supreme Court’s holding in this ruling that the FLSA is not to be read narrowly, but “fairly”:

Because the FLSA gives no ‘textual indication’ that its exemptions should be construed narrowly, ‘there is no reason to give [them] anything other than a fair (rather than a ‘narrow’) interpretation.'”

Since 1966, service advisors have been deemed exempt under an exemption added to the FLSA covering “any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles [. . .].” However, confusion sprung when, in 2011, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued a rule rejecting the interpretation of “salesman” to include service advisors.

Thus, in 2012, relying on the DOL’s rule, current and former Encino service advisors sued the Mercedes Benz dealer, claiming Encino violated the FLSA for failing to pay them overtime. The case has been bouncing around ever since. In 2016, the Supreme Court reversed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, finding it improper for courts to defer to the 2011 DOL rule, because “the regulation undermined significant reliance interests in the automobile industry by changing the treatment of service advisors without a sufficiently reasoned explanation.” Accordingly, this ruling finally puts the issue to rest – service advisors are exempt from the FLSA’s overtime requirement.