ALICIA BROWN, Individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated who consent to their inclusion in a Collective Action, TINA KHOURI, v. NEXUS BUSINESS SOLUTIONS, LLC
No. 20-13909
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
April 1, 2022
[PUBLISH]
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia
D.C. Docket No. 1:17-cv-01679-ELR
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
The Fair Labor Standards Act generally requires employers to pay their employees more for working over 40 hours per week.
The plaintiffs here are “business development managers,” tasked with persuading corporate customers to purchase General Motors vehicles for their fleets. Because this task often requires over 40
I.
About nine years ago, General Motors launched “Operation Conquest“—an initiative aimed at increasing business for its dealerships and enlarging the market share of its vehicles. The plan involved recruiting business development managers who would “hunt and conquest [sic] commercial business from primary automotive competitors” through “direct contact with prospective conquest customers” who maintain mid-size fleets. In other words, the new recruits specialized in finding new corporate customers and persuading them to purchase GM vehicles. Business development managers were told to “research and qualify prospects, make customer presentations and transition sales opportunities to GM dealers.” (Emphasis omitted). Each was expected to be a “facilitator and liaison” between customers and dealerships by developing “business leads and opportunities.” But they had no authority to quote binding prices or close sales themselves. Only authorized dealerships could do that.
Although General Motors provided data and resources for the business development managers to use, it outsourced their actual hiring to Nexus Business Solutions; all of that firm‘s revenue came from staffing Operation Conquest. Nexus also managed the business development managers and evaluated them on a monthly basis. The evaluation accounted for initial meetings, presentations, new accounts resulting in a GM vehicle purchase, and vehicles ordered by or delivered to customers. And because Nexus offered bonuses for good results, it is no surprise that workweeks longer than 40 hours were common. Business development managers were instructed that more time working would result in more business—the message was that there was “no such thing as too much.”
Perhaps chafing at this approach, a group of the employees filed a collective action suit against Nexus, alleging overtime violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In response, Nexus asserted that the Act‘s maximum hour provisions do not apply because the business development managers are covered by several statutory exemptions—namely those for administrative employees, outside salespeople, and auto sales employees. Both parties moved for summary judgment. The district court granted Nexus‘s motion, concluding that the business development managers fell under the administrative exemption.1 The employees now appeal.
II.
We review an appeal from summary judgment de novo. Scantland v. Jeffry Knight, Inc., 721 F.3d 1308, 1310 (11th Cir. 2013). Summary judgment is proper “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Id. (quoting
III.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employees who work over 40 hours per week are generally entitled to time-and-a-half compensation for overtime.
To decide who falls within this exemption, the Department of Labor uses a three-pronged test. An employee is an administrative worker if (1) her salary exceeds the minimum established by the regulation, (2) she mainly performs “office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer” or its customers, and (3) her “primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.”
To be sure, many jobs do not. Only those employees who engage in “the comparison and the evaluation of possible courses of conduct, and acting or making a decision after the various possibilities have been considered,” make the cut.
The employees argue that their work for Nexus was too restricted and repetitive to allow for meaningful discretion. They describe their jobs as asking “pre-determined questions,” following “literal scripts,” “regurgitat[ing]” pre-approved phrases, and using “canned presentation materials” with little or no deviation on their part. (Emphasis omitted). Though they “made minor, ad hoc decisions about the minutiae of how they would pursue an individual potential customer” and “minor adjustments” along the way, the employees argue, these choices had a de minimis effect on their performance.
We are not persuaded. A worker need not have “limitless discretion” or a total lack of supervision to qualify as an administrative employee. Hogan v. Allstate Ins. Co., 361 F.3d 621, 627 (11th Cir. 2004). And as the district court observed, the employees here “had a hand in choosing which leads to develop, performed customized research before meeting with selected leads, and delivered presentations that necessarily required some amount of customization.” In their own words, the “primary role” of the business development
In carrying its burden to show that the administrative exemption applies, Nexus points to ample record evidence that business development managers exercised discretion in their job pursuits. One employee testified that even though he was given a particular set of steps to follow, he would choose to go “out of order” so he could do “whatever would be best for the customer, whatever is easiest for them, whatever is going to minimize the barriers of entry.” The employees offered testimony affirming the need to “discern” the needs of corporate customers, provide “customized” presentations, and “specifically depict information to the client based on their understanding.” That flexibility is part of the business model; the Fleet Training Guide for business development managers invites each one to “[d]ecide for yourself and for each presentation” how best to deal with questions that arise and to “[a]nticipate questions in advance and prepare responses” before speaking with potential customers.
In a bid to escape the administrative exemption, the employees contend that even if they do have some level of discretion, it is limited and does not apply to “matters of significance.” Citing cases from district courts in other circuits, they assert that “an exercise of discretion that impacts or affects a matter of significance is not exercising discretion with respect to a matter of significance.” See Ahle v. Veracity Rsch. Co., 738 F. Supp. 2d 896, 908 (D. Minn. 2010); see also Calderon v. GEICO Gen. Ins. Co., 917 F. Supp. 2d 428, 442 (D. Md. 2012).
That strained distinction is not found in the law of this Circuit, and it does not match up with these facts in any event. Exercising discretion over how to secure new customers for General Motors is undoubtedly a “matter of significance” from the perspective of Nexus, whose entire business model is supplying employees for GM‘s Operation Conquest program. The discretion exercised by business development managers goes straight to the heart of GM customer recruitment efforts—and straight to the core service that Nexus provides. In contrast, jobs where an employee‘s discretion lacks the necessary connection to “matters of significance” generally affect an employer‘s operations less directly; examples include messengers carrying money or operators of expensive equipment.
In short, the business development managers in this case are covered by the administrative exemption in the Fair Labor Standards Act. We therefore need not address the issue of whether they also fall within the outside sales exemption, and we AFFIRM the district court‘s grant of summary judgment.