Car dealerships win overtime-pay case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that car dealerships aren’t required under federal law to pay overtime to their service advisers, the employees who greet customers and assess their service and repair needs.

The court ruled that service advisers are salesmen and therefore exempt from overtime requirements.

The case affects the more than 18,000 dealerships nationwide. Together, they employ more than 100,000 service advisers.

The high court ruled 5-4 that service advisers, like car salesmen and some service department employees, are exempt under federal law from overtime pay requirements.

The case the high court made its decision in involves a Mercedes Benz dealership in Encino, Calif., and sev-

eral current and former service advisers. Each side had a different interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which says that “any salesman … primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles” doesn’t have to be paid overtime.

The dealership argued that the definition of “salesman” clearly includes service advisers, who have a range of job responsibilities from helping to diagnose mechanical problems to preparing price estimates for repairs. Service advisers had argued that they weren’t covered by the definition.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a majority opinion that the “ordinary meaning of ‘salesman’ is someone who sells goods or services” and

that service advisers “do precisely that.”

The issue came to the high court after the Department of Labor changed its interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 2011. For the three decades up to then, the department operated under the view that service advisers didn’t have to be paid overtime.

Monday’s decision was the second time the court has ruled in the case. In an earlier round of litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that service advisers were entitled to overtime. But in 2016, following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, an eight-member Supreme Court sidestepped the overtime question and told the appeals court to take another look at the case. After a second look, the appeals court once again ruled in favor of the service advisers.

AP Chevrolet pickups are lined up on a Pittsburgh dealership lot in this February 2017 photo. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that car dealers don’t have to pay overtime pay for service advisers, ruling that those employees are primarily salesmen and not service workers.