Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

HELIX ENERGY SOLUTIONS GROUP, INC., ET AL. v. HEWITT CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 21–984. Argued October 12, 2022—Decided February 22, 2023 Respondent Michael Hewitt filed an action against his employer, peti- tioner Helix Energy Solutions Group, seeking overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which guarantees overtime pay to covered employees when they work more than 40 hours a week. From 2014 to 2017, Hewitt worked for Helix on an offshore oil rig, typically working 84 hours a week while on the vessel. Helix paid Hewitt on a daily-rate basis, with no overtime compensation. So Hewitt’s paycheck, issued every two weeks, amounted to his daily rate times the number of days he had worked in the pay period. Under that com- pensation scheme, Hewitt earned over $200,000 annually. Helix as- serts that Hewitt was exempt from the FLSA because he qualified as “a bona fide executive.” 29 U. S. C. §213(a)(1). Under applicable reg- ulations, an employee is considered a bona fide executive excluded from the FLSA’s protections if the employee meets three distinct tests: (1) the “salary basis” test, which requires that an employee receive a predetermined and fixed salary that does not vary with the amount of time worked; (2) the “salary level” test, which requires that preset sal- ary to exceed a specified amount; and (3) the job “duties” test. See 84 Fed. Reg. 51230. The Secretary of Labor has implemented the bona fide executive standard through two separate and slightly different rules, one “general rule” applying to employees making less than $100,000 in annual compensation, and a different rule addressing “highly compensated employees” (HCEs) who make at least $100,000 per year. 29 CFR §§541.100, 541.601(a), (b)(1). The general rule con- siders employees to be executives when they are “[c]ompensated on a salary basis” (salary-basis test); “at a rate of not less than $455 per week” (salary-level test); and carry out three listed responsibilities— 2 HELIX ENERGY SOLUTIONS GROUP, INC. v. HEWITT

Syllabus

managing the enterprise, directing other employees, and exercising power to hire and fire (duties test). §541.100(a). The HCE rule relaxes only the duties test, while restating the other two. As litigated in this case, whether Hewitt was an executive exempt from the FLSA’s over- time pay guarantee turns solely on whether Hewitt was paid on a sal- ary basis. The District Court agreed with Helix’s view that Hewitt was compensated on a salary basis and granted the company summary judgment. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, decid- ing that Hewitt was not paid on a salary basis and therefore could claim the FLSA’s protections. The court so held based on its examina- tion of the two regulations that give content to the salary-basis test. The majority first concluded that a daily-rate employee (like Hewitt) does not fall within the main salary-basis provision of §541.602(a), which states: “An employee will be considered to be paid on a ‘salary basis’ . . . if the employee regularly receives each pay period on a weekly, or less frequent basis, a predetermined amount constituting all or part of the employee’s comp