Judge Amos Mazzant of the Eastern District of Texas

Originally published on The National Law Journal. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

A Texas federal judge issued an preliminary injunction halting the Obama administration's proposed regulatory revisions that would have doubled for most employees the salary threshold for overtime pay.

U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant of the Eastern District of Texas, who presides in Sherman, Texas, issued his memorandum and order barring the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) from implementing and enforcing its proposed new overtime rules, which were scheduled to become effective Dec. 1.

Mazzant, who was appointed to the federal bench by Obama in 2014, concluded that 21 plaintiff states, including Texas, that had requested the preliminary injunction, had established “a prima facie case” that some of the DOL's proposed changes were without statutory authority.

DOL had estimated the rule changes would, if implemented, expand overtime coverage to more than 4 million additional workers.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers must pay their nonexempt employees time-and-a-half for working more than 40 hours per week only if the employees make less than $23,660 per year.

But under the proposed revision of the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations, more employees would have gotten this mandatory overtime, as the exempt salary threshold will be raised to $47,476.

But Mazzant wrote that the plaintiff states had shown that DOL had no statutory authority to set that salary level as the threshold or to establish an automatic updating mechanism for setting threshold salary level for overtime pay in the future.

In September, the plaintiff states filed their lawsuit, State of Nevada v. United States Department of Labor, alleging that the proposed revisions to the overtime regulations are unconstitutional.

In additional to Texas, the plaintiff states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin.

In their complaint, the plaintiff states argued the revision “rendered virtually irrelevant any inquiry into whether an employee is actually working in an executive, administrative, or professional capacity” and therefore eligible for overtime.

By ignoring such nonsalary factors, the Obama administration “has disregarded the actual requirements of the statute,” the complaint states.

“The new rule exceeds Constitutional authorization too. Under the new overtime rule, States must pay overtime to state employees that are performing executive, administrative, or professional functions if the state employees earn a salary less than an amount determined by the Executive Branch of the government. And there is apparently no ceiling over which DOL cannot set the salary level,” the complaint states.

In response, however, the DOL has argued that the salary level test is “reasonable” and “must be upheld.”