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

© 2022 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2022 ed. | 83 A. White Collar Exemptions Under federal law, workers employed in a “bona fide executive, administrative , or professional capacity” are exempt from the overtime pay requirements. 445 The executive, administrative , and professional exemptions are typically referred to as the “white collar exemptions.” While both Massachusetts and federal law exempt other categories of employees from overtime, the white collar exemptions are those on which employers most often rely and therefore are also the exemptions that are most often subject to litigation. While the Massachusetts Minimum Fair Wage Law includes the white collar exemptions for bona fide executive, administrative , and professional employees, 446 the statute does not provide definitions for these three categories of employees. The Massachusetts minimum wage regulations, however, provide that “[t]he terms ‘bona fide executive or administrative or professional person’ in [the Massachusetts statute] . . . shall have the same meaning” as those set forth in the federal regulations. 447 According to the federal regulations, to qualify as exempt pursuant to the white collar exemptions, an employee must: 1. Be paid at or above a certain compensation level; 2. Be paid on a salary, rather than hourly, basis ; 448 and 3. Perform certain exempt duties. 449 While the first two elements of the test are the same regardless of which white collar exemption an employer applies, with respect to the third element, there are separate “duties” tests for each of the executive, administrative , and professional exemptions. The first and second parts of the white collar exemption test (i.e., the level of compensation an employee must earn and the salary basis requirement) are discussed below. The duties tests for each of the white collar exemptions are then addressed separately. 445 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1). 446 M.G.L. ch. 151, § 1A(3). 447 454 C.M.R. § 27.03. Addit ionally, under both Massachuset t s and federal law, certain highly compensated individuals who perform at least some of the dut ies of an administ rat ive, execut ive, or professional employee are also exempt . 29 C.F.R. § 541.601. The exemption for highly compensated employees is discussed further in Sect ion VI.A.4. Prior to implementat ion of the regulat ions, court s st ill looked to federal law in interpret ing this statute. See Goodrow , 432 Mass. at 170 (holding that in the absence of statutory definit ions of exemptions, “we may look to interpretations of analogous Federal statutes for guidance, . . . but we are not bound by them”); Vitali v. Reit Mgt. & Research, LLC , 88 Mass. App. Ct . 99, 103 (2015) (“ in interpreting state law, [Massachuset t s court s] look to howthe FLSA has been const rued”). 448 Some of the white collar exempt ions provide for except ions from the minimum salary level and salary basis requirement s. 449 29 C.F.R. § 541.400.