In a “it's déjà vu all over
again” moment, on Nov. 15, 2024, the U.S. District Court for
the Eastern District of Texas in Texas and Plano Chamber
of Commerce v. United States Department of Labor set
aside and vacated the U.S. Department of Labor's 2024 Final
Rule increasing the salary level for employees to remain exempt
from minimum wage and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards
Act's (FLSA) executive, administrative and professional (EAP)
exemptions, and automatically updating the salary level every three
years. This is, of course, the same fate that met the 2016 Final
Rule that both increased the salary level for EAP employees and
automatically updated that level, which was enjoined in the waning
days of the Obama administration. While the U.S. Department of
Justice, which represents the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), filed
an appeal of this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit, it is anticipated that the incoming administration
likely will
