Justices OK overtime pay for $200,000-a-year oil rig worker
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an energy company employee who earned more than $200,000 a year still qualified for overtime pay under a New Deal-era federal law meant to protect blue-collar workers.
By a 6-3 vote, the justices sided with Michael Hewitt, who was a "tool-pusher" supervising 12 to 14 workers on an offshore oil rig. Hewitt was paid a minimum of $963 for any day he worked as part of an unusual schedule on the oil rig.
Between 2014 and 2017, Hewitt was paid more than $200,000 a year from his employer, Helix Energy Solutions Group. But Hewitt earned no overtime, even when he worked more than 80 hours a week, as sometimes happened.
Business groups had told the court that a ruling for Hewitt would turn the Fair Labor Standards Act on its head by encouraging highly trained and well-paid workers to sue under a law that was meant to address substandard wages and dangerously long hours.
In an opinion by Justice Elena Kagan, the court held that Hewitt qualified for overtime pay under the FLSA, despite a provision of the law that exempts "bona fide executives." Under Labor Department regulations, employees making more than $100,000 a year generally don't have to be paid overtime.
Hewitt prevailed, Kagan wrote, because the company paid him by the day and not weekly. The regulation at issue "applies solely to employees paid by the week (or longer); it is not met when an employer pays an employee by the day, as Helix paid Hewitt," Kagan wrote.
In dissent, Justice Brett Kavanaugh lamented the court's "head-scratching assertion" that Hewitt wasn't guaranteed a weekly minimum in any week he worked even as he was "guaranteed to receive $963 for any day that he worked." Justice Samuel Alito joined Kavanaugh's dissent and Justice Neil Gorsuch dissented separately.
The case is Helix Energy Solutions Group v. Hewitt, 21-984.
Court rules for Arizona inmate in death penalty case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for a man on Arizona's death row who wants a new sentencing hearing because jurors in his case were wrongly told that the only way to ensure he would never walk free was to sentence him to death.
The 5-4 decision written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor likely means that John Montenegro Cruz will get a new penalty phase of his trial where it is made clear to jurors that he is ineligible for parole if he is sentenced to life in prison, instead of death.
"I am so gratified by the Court's decision today. What Arizona has been doing in implementing the death penalty is patently unconstitutional and wrong, and I'm glad to see the Court call them out," Cruz's lawyer Neal Katyal said in a statement.
The case is important not only for Cruz, but also for other Arizona death row inmates. Arizona currently has approximately 100 people on its death row and the decision could affect about 30 of them with pending cases.
Cruz had argued that the jury should have been informed he would be ineligible for parole if spared from death and given a life sentence. A judge rejected that request and the state said Cruz failed to make the precise requests he needed to under Supreme Court precedent.
At least one juror has said that had she known that a "life sentence without parole" was an alternative to death, she "would have voted for that option."
Cruz was convicted of the 2003 murder of a Tucson police officer, Patrick Hardesty. Hardesty and another officer were investigating a hit-and-run accident that led them to Cruz, who attempted to flee and shot Hardesty five times.
A 1994 Supreme Court case, Simmons v. South Carolina, says that in certain death penalty cases, jurors must be told that choosing a life sentence means life without the possibility of parole. That's required when prosecutors argue that the defendant will pose a threat to society in the future.
Arizona courts refused to apply the decision. In a 2016 case, Lynch v. Arizona, the Supreme Court told Arizona directly that it needed to comply with Simmons. Cruz argued Arizona has continued to defy the high court.
The case is Cruz v. Arizona, 21-846.
