Page:Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt.pdf/31

Rh Mississippi et al. as Amici Curiae 7–10; (, dissenting). Recall that the Act provides that employees who work in a “bona fide executive … capacity” are not entitled to overtime pay. 29 U. S. C. §213(a)(1). The Act focuses on whether the employee performs executive duties, not how much an employee is paid or how an employee is paid. So it is questionable whether the Department’s regulations—which look not only at an employee’s duties but also at how much an employee is paid and how an employee is paid—will survive if and when the regulations are challenged as inconsistent with the Act. It is especially dubious for the regulations to focus on how an employee is paid (for example, by salary, wage, commission, or bonus) to determine whether the employee is a bona fide executive. An executive employee’s duties (and perhaps his total compensation) may be relevant to assessing whether the employee is a bona fide executive. But I am hard-pressed to understand why it would matter for assessing executive status whether an employee is paid by salary, wage, commission, bonus, or some combination thereof. In any event, I would leave it to the Fifth Circuit on remand to determine whether Helix forfeited the statutory issue. But whether in Hewitt’s case on remand or in another case, the statutory question remains open for future resolution in the lower courts and perhaps ultimately in this Court.

I respectfully dissent.