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Washington Overtime Labor Law Court Decision

March 2nd, 2007 Posted by Mark

The Washington state Supreme Court in Seattle has made an important decision today that could affect some businesses in the state and the way that they pay their employees the minimum wage there. The ruling is specific to truckers in the state of Washington.

In its court ruling, the state Supreme court decided that these truckers should get their overtime pay if they work more than 40 hours in a week, even if most of those hours in that week time frame were actually worked outside of the state. Obviously, these rule would have the most to do with truckers, whose job it can be to travel all over the country in their vehicles.

The ruling was a tight 5 to 4 decision, that said that the most important part of the state of Washington’s overtime law was more the amount of hours worked in the week, not where those hours were worked. Writing for the minority opinion, though, one of the judges commented how this ruling goes against the popular practice in the state and could have significant impact on how trucking employers pay their employees.

The case was so close and hard fought, in fact, that my sources are telling me that it could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The issue behind the case was an actual trucker who was told by his employer that they did not have to pay him overtime, even though he was working 48 hour weeks. The driver took his employers to court, and the case eventually made its way all the way to the state Supreme Court.

I am no lawyer, but I do think it is quite obvious to see how this ruling could affect employers even outside of the trucking industry—any employer who has workers in and out of the state during the course of their jobs.