The Obama administration’s controversial overtime rule is now dead in the water. Yesterday, a Texas federal court ruled in favor of the 55 state and business plaintiffs who challenged the rule and argued that the DOL had exceeded its authority when it doubled the salary threshold from $455/week to $913/week. This case is now over and the Obama overtime rule is invalidated.

What remains unanswered are the Trump Administration’s plans for the overtime law. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta indicated that the DOL is going to take another stab at re-drafting the overtime regulations. Acosta also stated that he believes the current salary threshold is too low.  While the Obama administration only altered the salary threshold requirements for exemption, there are still many proponents of a revision to the job duties tests, which are cumbersome and sometimes difficult to interpret and apply correctly. On July 26, 2017, the DOL published a request for information (RFI) asking stakeholders for their input on what changes, if any, should be made to the overtime rules. Based upon the scope of the questions proposed by the DOL, it appears that the agency is going back to the drawing board.  So far, the DOL has received over 120,000 responses to the RFI. The deadline to submit responses to the RFI is September 25, 2017.