On January 23, 2015, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) filed a notice of appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (District Court) challenging two rulings in the case of Home Care Association of America et al. v. Weil. The rulings at issue invalidated significant regulatory provisions in the DOL’s Final Rule concerning domestic service workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

As reported previously in Robinson+Cole’s Health Law Pulse on December 22, 2014, the District Court rejected a provision in the Final Rule that would have prevented home care agencies and other third-party employers of domestic service workers from utilizing the “companionship services” exemption to the FLSA’s minimum wage and overtime rules. In a second ruling on January 14, 2015, the District Court invalidated a provision in the Final Rule that would have excluded “care” services (such as dressing, grooming, feeding, bathing, preparing meals, etc.) from the definition of companionship services if such services account for more than 20 percent of an employee’s total hours worked per workweek per patient that received the services. In each of the rulings rejecting the provisions in the DOL’s Final Rule, Judge Richard J. Leon stated that the DOL was attempting “to do through regulation what must be done through legislation.”