WA Court strikes OT exemption for dairy farms, order 3 YEARS back pay

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Doing this would bankrupt, at the very least, dozens of family-owned dairies, and it wouldn’t stop there.

The liability that dairies are open to would fall on all Washington farms as well, threatening to make such things as Walla-Walla Onions and Washington Apples a thing of the past. Bear in mind that this might happen even though dairy, fruit, and other farmers followed the law on wages, as it was written, to a “T.”

What small business with several employees could survive being forced to pay three years of phantom back wages? Such inflated profit margins simply do not exist in the vast majority of industries, and they certainly don’t exist in farming. If the goalpost can be moved retroactively so that following the law as written still does not shield you from lawsuits, then an awful lot of other businesses should be very, very nervous.

https://spectator.org/washington-farmers-overtime/

[Eupher]

This is what happens when lawyers get involved in politics. With a nod to DAT, who is an attorney and perhaps a military judge (not sure), the political system of introduction of a bill and allowing it to be fundamentally changed out of committee and then voted into law, voids the entire concept of "speedy" resolution.

Farmers and industries offer jobs that are attractive to some, but not to all. It's the agreement between worker and the job that is pertinent, not the worker to the person offering the job. The worker accepts the job and its wages and benefits - or doesn't. The person offering the job either offers it under the conditions that represent the job's value to him, or doesn't. It's simple that way.

But the leftist politicians in WA want to kill opportunity and entrepreneurship, not to mention the independence of small business owners who can ill afford this crap.

[ExGeeEye]

Sounds like an ex post facto law to me (who is not a lawyer).  Apparently, the exemption existed in some sort of statute.

Correct (to me) would be to strike the exemption going forward.

Imagine the situation reversed; an exemption that has not previously existed is written into the law, and workers who had been collecting OT pay having to reimburse their employers.

[freedumb2003b]

Sounds like an ex post facto law to me (who is not a lawyer).  Apparently, the exemption existed in some sort of statute.

Correct (to me) would be to strike the exemption going forward.

Imagine the situation reversed; an exemption that has not previously existed is written into the law, and workers who had been collecting OT pay having to reimburse their employers.

Something similar happened when I worked for a state agency.  We had a computer operator who would show up to work rip roaring drunk.  Being a State agency it still took us a year to fire him.  This was originally before the ADA. He filed suit and the suit wended its way though the system.  Eventually, the court RETROACTIVELY applied the ADA, said alcoholism is a "disease" and he should have been treated not fired.  He got 3 years back wages and we had to hire him back.

We gave him a do-nothing job away from everyone and everything.  As you can imagine, in 6 months he had drank up all his back pay, continued to come to work drunk and, since we followed ALL the ADA rules about addiction referral, was fired and disappeared.  Probably long dead by now.