Judge Amos Mazzant, a Texas federal district court judge, just issued a nationwide injunction which stops the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) new overtime rules from taking effect as scheduled on December 1. Twenty-one states and dozens of business groups pushed for an end to what they claimed is an unlawful change.  Judge Mazzant  issued the preliminary injunction on the grounds that the plaintiffs were able to show a likelihood of success in their challenge of the DOL rule as well as irreparable harm if it went into effect, while the DOL failed to show it would be harmed if the rule were delayed.

The DOL’s new rule would have made salaried employees earning under $47,476 eligible for overtime pay, more than a 100 percent increase from the current federal salary threshold of $23,660 and approximately $6,000 more than California’s current salary threshold of $41,600 (going up in January 2017, when minimum wage increases to $10.50/hour). 

Stay tuned to see if the DOL seeks to overturn the preliminary injunction by filing an interlocutory appeal.