Wage & Hour Counsel : Wage & Hour Lawyer & Attorney : Littler Mendelson Law Firm : Employment Law, Labor Relations

Some candidates were retained by Surrex as consultants, and their services were leased to Surrex’s clients. The plaintiffs’ compensation for this type of placement was a percentage of the “adjusted gross profit” earned by Surrex. The starting point of this calculation was the rate received from Surrex’s client for the services of the consultant. From this, Surrex subtracted the costs of employing the particular consultant – typically the consultant’s pay, benefits, and expenses as well as an overhead adjustment factor. Commissions were paid as a percentage of the resulting “adjusted gross profit.”

The plaintiffs argued that only time spent finding new client companies was time spent selling, and contended that none of their work to identify and recruit candidates was sales activity. The court rejected this argument. Finding that the plaintiffs’ “primary duty was to recruit ‘candidates’ for employer ‘clients,’” the court agreed with the trial judge that ignoring all the activity that must be done before the actual point in time when a sale is made “perceives the word sales in a vacuum contrary to the job description of any salesman.” The tasks associated with identifying job candidates were “essential prerequisites necessary to accomplishing the sale.” Finding these activities to be sales related, the court concluded that the plaintiffs were “employed principally in selling a product or service.”

The plaintiffs also argued that pay earned as a percentage of the “adjusted gross profit” could not qualify as a commission because the formula was “far too complex” and was not based solely on the price of services sold. They contended that California courts require that a “commission” be based solely on a percentage of price. The Muldrow court rejected this argument, branding it an “excessively narrow and wooden application” of prior cases, neither of which had any occasion to address the question.

The court also distinguished decisions cited by the plaintiffs because the employees in those cases increased the profitability of their companies by increasing revenue, while plaintiffs’ efforts affected not only the revenue received by Surrex, but the costs incurred. A compensation plan based solely on price would reward the plaintiffs’ efforts to increase profits by increasing revenue, but do nothing to reward those who helped Surrex achieve greater profits by limiting costs. Referencing older cases addressing commission disputes, the court noted that “a commission based on profits is hardly a concept foreign to California law.” The court concluded that “Surrex’s commissions were sufficiently related to the price of services sold to constitute commissions for purposes of the commissioned employees exemption (Cal.Code. Regs., tit. 8, § 11070, subd. (3)(D)).”

The Muldrow decision applies a dose of common sense in answering some fundamental questions that had not been answered before. In the future, however, employers should consult counsel before relying on Muldrow, to be certain that it has not been taken up for review before the California Supreme Court. Once review is granted, as those who are “waiting for Brinker” are well aware, a case cannot be cited or relied upon in court proceedings. Because it provides new answers, Muldrow is a potential candidate for review.

CarMax classified its sales consultants as overtime exempt based on the commissioned salesperson exemption. In California, an employee covered by Wage Orders 4 or 7 may be exempt from the overtime requirements if that employee earns more than one and a half times the minimum wage and more than half of the employee’s compensation represents commissions. The California Labor Code also has a section applicable to vehicle dealers, which defines commissions as “compensation paid to any person for services rendered in the sale of such employer’s property or services and based proportionately upon the amount or value thereof.”² Although this code section and the case dealt with vehicle dealers, the court noted that other courts have found that the code section’s definition of commissions are more generally applicable.

The California Supreme Court had previously approved a two-part test to determine whether an employee is a commissioned salesperson exempt from overtime. First, an employee must be involved principally in selling a product or service. Second, the amount of the employee’s compensation must be a percent of the price of the product or service.³ Although CarMax’s compensation plan used a formula that resulted in a uniform payment per vehicle sold as opposed to a strict percentage of the price, the court in Areso found that under the language of the statute, the pay plan was based proportionately on the amount of vehicles sold, and thus qualified as a commission. The court thus distinguished between commissions based upon the value (price) of a product, and those based upon the amount (number) of product sold. The court rejected the position of the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, which had published in its enforcement manual that uniform payment constitutes “piece-rate” work and not commissioned sales work. The court held that piece-rate work pays employees for each piece of product finished, appointment made, or procedure completed – whereas the employees here made sales of property or services. The court held that although the uniform fee was a one to one proportion, the compensation was still proportionate to the amount of vehicles sold, and was thus a commission under California law, exempting those sales consultants from overtime pay under California’s wage orders.

¹ Case No. B219981, May 20, 2011, Ct. of Appeals, 2nd Appellate Dist., 1st Div.

² California Labor Code § 204.1. The primary purpose of Labor Code § 204.1 was to permit car dealerships to pay their salespeople once a month instead of biweekly as imposed upon other California employers.

³ Ramirez v. Yosemite Water Co., (1999) 20 Cal. 4th 785.

Photo credit: Niko Guido

The DOL intends to explore updates to this application to make it or similar versions compatible with other smartphone platforms, such as the Android and BlackBerry.

The DOL also has made available a printable work hours calendar for workers who do not own smartphones. This downloadable calendar allows workers to track their rate of pay, start and stop times, and arrival and departure times, and includes information about workers’ wage and hour rights and how to file a wage violation complaint. The new app poses several concerns for employers. First, the app has the potential to create confusion where, for instance, an employer has a permissible time entry rounding system in place. Because the app does not provide for rounding, in such instances, there may be discrepancies between the amount of time recorded by an employee (and the amount of wages calculated by the app to be due) and the employer's time records. Second, the app could potentially be abused by workers who “clock in” on the app before their actual start time, clock out after their actual stop time, or fail to accurately record non-compensable breaks. Employers should be mindful of these potential problems if an employee attempts to present data from the app as “evidence” of improper wage payment. In fact, the app itself includes a disclaimer of which employers and employees should be aware:

Disclaimer: This App is designed as a reference tool. It does not include every possible situation encountered in the workplace. Some situations not addressed in this App may yield a different result in the calculation of total pay. These include, but are not limited to, situations where, for example, the employee is not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act or is exempt from the minimum wage and/or overtime pay requirements of the FLSA. Further, the conclusions reached by this App rely on the accuracy of the data provided by the user. Therefore, DOL make no express or implied guarantees as to the accuracy of this information.

Notwithstanding the potential issues raised by the app, employees should not be prohibited from using it at work, as its use may constitute protected activity under the Fair Labor Standards Act and similar state wage laws. However, employers may permissibly enforce existing information technology policies regarding the installation of the app on company-provided electronic devices.

Photo credit: Alex Slobodkin

Under the new rules, employers must pay terminated employees commissions or bonuses already earned, based on routine or practice or special agreement. An employee earns a commission or bonus when the employee has met all required conditions set forth in an agreement. The regulations state, however, that if an employer wishes to change the terms of such an agreement, it must do so in writing and with notice to the affected employee. In addition, the regulations provide that draws against commissions or bonuses may be recovered from an employee’s pay.

The regulations also provide guidance regarding loans to employees. For example, employers may only recoup employee loans using the written authorization described in Texas Labor Code §61.018 (pdf), unless it is a “wage advance.” Under the regulations, a wage advance is an advance that is recovered from the next regularly scheduled paycheck. Such an advance is not considered a deduction or withholdings under Texas Labor Code §61.018. The regulations further provide that, in recouping a loan, employers may count the loan repayment toward any minimum or overtime wages due.

The regulations also state that expense reimbursements paid to employees are not wages for purposes of the Texas Labor Code.

This entry was written by Harry Jones.