Kennedy v. Las Vegas Sands Corp., 110 F.4^th 1136 (9^th Cir. 2024)

Sean Kennedy and the other plaintiffs worked as full-time corporate jet pilots for defendants. The pilots were paid between $125,000 and $160,000 annually. After an eight-day bench trial, the district court ordered judgment in favor of the employers on the ground that the pilots qualified as highly compensated exempt employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) who primarily performed non-manual labor and who customarily and regularly made significant discretionary decisions. The district court further held that even if the pilots were not exempt from overtime, their waiting time between flight assignments did not constitute “work” mandating overtime pay under the FLSA because the pilots could and did freely engage in personal activities during that time. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment. See also Silloway v. City and County of San Francisco, 2024 WL 4140633 (9^th Cir. 2024) (district court erred in concluding that city and county nurses were compensated on a salary basis as required for exemption under the FLSA).