[authors: Larry Golub and Sam Sorich]

On July 23, 2012, we reported that the California Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District) held in Harris v. Superior Court that claims adjusters for two insurers were not exempt from California’s overtime compensation laws. More specifically, the court concluded that the duties of those adjusters functioned as the day-to-day operations of the insurers and were not “directly related to management policies or general business operations” to fall within exempt status under California law.

The Court of Appeal’s earlier decision in the case was reversed and remanded by the Supreme Court on December 29, 2011, and the intermediate court was told to apply the correct analysis. Consequently, our prior report expected this second decision, as issued by a divided panel of the Court of Appeal, again to be presented to the Supreme Court seeking a petition for review.

Indeed, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and Golden Eagle Insurance Corporation, the insurers sued in the action, filed a Petition for Review on September 4, 2012, followed by a request to have the Court of Appeal’s decision depublished, as submitted by the California Employment Law Council.

On October 24, the Supreme Court ended the appellate proceedings in this case by (1) denying the Petition for Review and (2) depublishing the Court of Appeal decision. By this action, while the case is final as between the plaintiff claims adjusters and the insurers, the decision cannot be cited as authority in any other case.

With removal of this case from the precedential decisions of California law, the issue as to whether insurance adjusters in other cases and other contexts are exempt employees will continue to be litigated.