Foley & Lardner LLP Partner Christopher Ward is quoted in the Law360 article, “How Salary Regs’ History May Color High Court OT Ruling,” offering insight into what the U.S. Supreme Court may consider as it reviews Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt, a September 2021 Fifth Circuit decision on whether a worker earning six figures is entitled to overtime pay.
Ward explained that a tension lingering in the backdrop of the case is how qualitative versus quantitative work is valued and compensated.
“You don’t pay people that much to do quantity-based work; you pay people that much to do quality-based work,” he said. “These employees are making a lot of money. They’re performing very highly skilled work and there’s the smell test issue: Why on earth would they be hourly and subject to overtime, but at the same time, it’s not office work, and at least for a lot of them, it’s very manual.”
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