In order to fall within the FLSA’s Administrative exemption, an employer must establish that the employee has a primary duty of performing office or non-manual work directly related to management or general business operations and whose responsibilities include the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance. The Seventh Circuit found that PSRs performed non-manual work, running or servicing the employer’s business operation, as they represented their employers to physicians who were the most important decision-makers regarding use of their respective companies’ products. Hence, the PSRs satisfied the Administrative exemption’s first substantive criterion, having a principal duty of management, because they were the public “face” of their employers, promoting and marketing to prescribing physicians.
Turning to other final substantive criterion for satisfying the Administrative exemption, the Court found that the PSRs exercised discretion and independent judgment because they tailored their core message to the specific physician’s interests, time constraints, and specific concerns. Equally important, the Seventh Circuit found that PSRs were unsupervised on these sales calls, and applied strategic analysis to their work, choosing which physicians to visit and the frequency of such visits. There was no dispute that PSRs were paid on a salary basis. As such, the Seventh Circuit rejected the view of the Second Circuit...
