Family Dollar Store Manager Found Exempt under FLSA

A Family Dollar Store manager has lost an appeal of an FLSA exemption lawsuit.  The employee, Irene Grace, claimed she was not exempt because she performed a high percentage of non-managerial, manual tasks.  The court, applying the DOL Wage Hour Division regulations as they existed before the 2004 changes, disagreed, saying:

In this case, Grace was in charge of a separate retail store, seeking to make it profitable. While she catalogs the nonmanagerial jobs that she had to do, claiming that they occupied most of her time, she does so without recognizing that during 100% of the time, even while doing those jobs, she was also the person responsible for running the store. Indeed, there was no one else to do so, and it cannot be rationally assumed, nor does the record support a claim, that the store went without management 99% of the time. Grace also fails to acknowledge the importance of performing nonmanagerial tasks in a manner that could make the store profitable, the goal of her managerial responsibility.

The decision, Grace v. Family Dollar Store, from the Fourth Circuit, can be read at http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/dailyopinions/opinion.pdf/092029.P.pdf