Harris et al. v. Superior Court (Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. et al.)

Case Updates

In its third filing in this case, NCLC urged the California Supreme Court to review a decision by the California Court of Appeals that held insurance claims adjusters are not administrative employees exempt from overtime pay under California law, because they do not primarily perform work at policy or general operations level.

This appeal arises from a Court of Appeals decision that found that insurance claim adjusters’ day-to-day tasks involved in adjusting individual claims do not satisfy the “qualitative” component of the state’s administrative exemption. The Court of Appeals decision directed the trial court to grant the claim adjusters’ motion for summary adjudication on the exemption issue and to deny Liberty Mutual’s motion to decertify the class. NCLC argued in its amicus brief that the Supreme Court should grant review of this case a second time to ensure that California employers do not face differing wage-and-hour classification schemes despite the Industrial Welfare Commission's explicit effort to eliminate regulatory conflicts in this context.