The Fair Labor Standards Act's (FLSA) Motor Carrier exemption (MCE) is perhaps the broadest of all exemptions to the FLSA's overtime requirements, covering a vast array of people with even slight connections to interstate transportation. Under the motor carrier exemption, the FLSA's overtime rules do not apply to any employee with respect to whom the Secretary of Transportation has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service.
The Supreme Court of the United States has examined the motor carrier exemption on several occasions. In one case Walling v. Jacksonville Paper Co., 317 U.S. 564 (1943), the employees made deliveries completely within their state, but constantly received merchandise from interstate shipments. The employees picked up their merchandise at the defendant's local warehouse. The Court held that the goods remained in interstate commerce because they were earmarked for specific customers. The entry of goods into a warehouse interrupts but does not terminate their interstate journey. A temporary pause in their transit does not mean that they are no longer in commerce within the meaning of the Interstate Commerce Act. In Southland Gasoline Co. v. Bayley, 319 U.S. 44 (1943), the Court ruled the existence of the Interstate Commerce Commission's (the predecessor to the secretary) power w as not conditioned upon the actual exercise of such power nor a finding that exercise of such power was necessary. In a more recent case with the same finding, Bilyou v. Dutchess Beer Dist., Inc., 300 F.3d 217 (2d Cir. 2002), plaintiff was a delivery driver for a beverage distributor, although all deliveries were made within New York, defendant received most of its inventory from out of state. Plaintiff also picked up empty containers from defendant's customers, which were then shipped out of state. The court ruled that transportation of empties satisfied the interstate commerce requirements and declined to address whether transportation of beverages manufactured out of state also satisfied the requirement.
The exemption applies to employees who drive vehicles other than trucks and buses, such as vans, automobiles, including private vehicles, if they transport instruments of commerce across state lines. For example, in Ford v. Gannett Co., a 2005 case out of the Western District of New York, the plaintiffs usually drove their own cars in order to deliver newspapers published by the defendant. The Court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment because the advertising inserts and certain supplements included with the papers were printed and shipped from outside New York, and then inserted into the newspapers without modification. The motor carrier exemption applies only to classes of employees, whose work directly affects safety, including drivers, drivers' helpers, loaders and mechanics. The Motor Carrier exemption applies only to employees of the carrier. It does not apply to employees of company that service or support the carrier. For example, in Boutell Service Co. v. Walling, 327 U.S. 463 (1945), the Court ruled that the exemption did not apply to employees of a company that serviced motor carrier's vehicles, even though the company worked exclusively for the motor carrier.
Despite the exemption from the FLSA's overtime requirements, state overtime laws still apply to employees of motor carriers. The Motor Carrier exemption does not preempt requirements of New York State's overtime laws.
