Mass-Peculiarities: An Employers Guide to Wage & Hour Law in the Bay State 2022 Edition

104 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. © 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP technical knowledge rather than the exercise of discretion and independent judgment 574 • Employees referred to as examiners or graders, such as lumber graders, whose work involves the comparison of products with established standards that are frequently catalogue d 575 c. Professional Exemption There are three types of professionals that are exempted from overtime under the FLSA: learned professionals, creative professionals, and computer professionals. Massachusetts has adopted both the learned and the creative professional exemptions, but neither the Massachusetts legislature nor the courts have addressed the computer professional exemption. (1) Learned Professional Exemption To qualify for the learned professional exemption, an employee must meet all of the following requirements: • The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $684.00 per week. • The employee’s primary duty 576 must be the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character. • The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning. • The advanced knowledge must be customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction. 577 (a) Work Requiring Advanced Knowledge To qualify for the learned professional exemption, an employee’s primary duty must be the performance of “work requiring advanced knowledge,” meaning work that is predominantly intellectual in character and that requires the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment, as distinguished from the performance of routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work. 578 The discretion required to meet the professional exemption is a “less stringent” standard than the discretion required under the administrative exemption. 579 A professional employee generally 574 29 C.F.R. § 541.203(j). 575 29 C.F.R. § 541.203(h). 576 The definit ion of the term “primary duty” is discussed supra note 514. 577 29 C.F.R. § 541.300. 578 29 C.F.R. § 541.301(b). 579 Crowe v. Examworks, Inc. , 136 F. Supp. 3d 16, 30 & n.10 (D. Mass. 2015).