Belt v. EmCare, Inc.

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents the question whether physician assistants (“PA’s”) and nurse practitioners (“NP’s”) 1 qualify for the professional exemption to the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). Plaintiffs, and the Department of Labor (“DOL”) as amicus curiae, contend that the regulation interpreting the professional exemption, 29 C.F.R. § 541.3 (1973), does not speak to the precise question before us and that the agency’s informal interpretive statements excluding plaintiffs from the exemption merit deference under Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S.…