California Labor Law will Determine the Exemption Status of Unlicensed Accounting Employees
Recently in San Francisco’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, oral arguments were heard on Campbell v PricewaterhouseCoopers. This is a wage and hour case in which the employees, unlicensed audit associates, are claiming that they have been misclassified as exempt and are owed overtime. If the plaintiffs are successful at recovering their overtime, it will open the door for more class actions brought by similarly situated employees.
The counsel for the plaintiffs presented their argument to a panel of three judges. The briefs read as follows:
“PwC argues that Attest Associates satisfy the Professional Exemption because—notwithstanding the routine and nondiscretionary nature of their work—PwC claims that they are functionally indistinguishable from fully licensed accountants, doctors, lawyers, and engineers. As a matter of law, however, the text, structure, and drafting history of the Professional Exemption limit its application to licensed accountants, and Associates are not licensed. Second, PwC argues that Attest Associates satisfy the Wage Order’s Administrative Exemption because they work “under only general supervision” despite up to six layers of managers who are responsible for Associates’ work. That argument fails, however, because PwC has not pointed to sufficient evidence to create a triable issue of fact that Associates “work along specialized or technical lines”—much less that they do so “under only general supervision”—as required by the Administrative Exemption.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers counsel argument was as follows:
“Put simply, nothing in the Wage Order precludes unlicensed accountants from being shown to be exempt under subsection (b) of the Professional Exemption. Plaintiffs’ argument that the “drafting history” of the wage order at issue shows an intention on the part of the [Industrial Welfare Commission] to prohibit unlicensed accountants from being professionally exempt should be rejected, because the language and structure of the Professional Exemption are not ambiguous, and contain no such prohibition. Even the District Court did not accept Plaintiffs’ tortured reading of the text of the Professional Exemption, or claim to find unambiguous intent on the part of the [Industrial Welfare Commission] to exclude from eligibility for the Professional Exemption all unlicensed members of the accounting profession — and inevitably by extension, all unlicensed lawyers, doctors, dentists, optometrists, architects, engineers, and teachers. Doing so is flatly contrary to the overriding principle governing application of exemptions from overtime provisions, which is to consider individual employees’ work duties.”
The employees’ position essentially is that they are not exempt under either the professional exemption or administrative exemption because, they argue, that they are neither working in a specialized or technical role nor are they given the requisite discretion over how they may carry out their work to qualify as exempt from overtime.
PricewaterhouseCoopers argues that the tasks that auditors perform are not that different from the tasks a licensed accountant performs. Licensed accountants do fall under the professional exemption therefore auditors should as well. They further argue that the exemption status should be based on the job duties or tasks that the employees perform and not on whether or not they are licensed.
The court has not given its ruling but clearly has a lot to consider.
If you hold a position in accounting and are currently being paid a salary, you may be owed overtime. If you have any questions it is advisable to contact a California labor law attorney to discuss your situation.
Call now to see if you have been misclassified for overtime pay or any other employment law question: (415) 200-0012Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Bacho