Plaintiff employee appealed a judgment from the court of appeals (California) that affirmed the decision of the trial court, which dismissed plaintiff's claim for overtime wages against defendant employer.
Plaintiff employee appealed a judgment that dismissed plaintiff's claim for overtime wages against defendant employer. Plaintiff argued that the evidence showed plainly that he spent more time delivering products and providing services than selling. Therefore, plaintiff argued that he was not an outside salesperson as defined by the California Industrial Welfare Commission and was entitled to overtime wages. The court held that the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C.S. § 218 included a savings clause that permitted states to regulate overtime wages. Therefore, M&A process checklist the lower courts improperly employed a federal method of determining if an employee was an outside salesperson. The court noted that the federal exemption focused on defining the employee's "primary function," not on how much work time was spent selling. The court found that the state regulation, which took a purely quantitative approach, focused exclusively on whether the individual worked more than half the working time selling. The lower court's judgment was accordingly reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
The court concluded that the lower court may have erred in determining that the plaintiff was an outside salesperson by incorrectly relying on a federal regulation and interpretation of the regulation when construing the state's definition of "outside salesperson." Accordingly, the case was reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Appellant sought review of a judgment of the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco (California). Respondent filed a motion to dismiss the appeal.
Following a judgment for respondent, appellant filed a notice of appeal. Due to various delays and continuances caused by appellant, no brief was filed until more than one year after the filing of the notice of appeal. Respondent sought dismissal of the appeal on the ground that appellant's opening brief was not timely filed, and the court granted the motion. The court explained that the only reason given for the failure to file the brief within the last prescribed time was that appellant's attorney was sick. The court found that the sickness did not cover the full period of the delay and that another attorney was attending to the case, and no showing was made why that attorney or some other could not have filed the brief, or at least obtained a stipulation or order protecting the time to file. The court declined to exercise its discretion to grant relief from the default pursuant to Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 473, which permitted relief when delays were caused through inadvertence or excusable neglect, holding that § 473 did not apply.
The court granted the motion.
