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Outside Salespersons Need Not Transfer a Title or Consummate a Transaction to Be Exempt from Overtime

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    Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 132 S. Ct. 2156 (U.S. 2012) (0 other reports)

Author: Michael Cardman, XpertHR Legal Editor

In Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., +132 S. Ct. 2156 (U.S. 2012), the United States Supreme Court addressed whether pharmaceutical sales representatives qualify for the Fair Labor Standards Act's outside salesperson exemption even if they do not transfer the title for a property or directly consummate a transaction.

The plaintiffs in the case claimed that their primary duty of obtaining nonbinding commitments from physicians to prescribe their employers' drugs did not constitute sales within the meaning of the FLSA.

Therefore, they argued they did not qualify as outside salespersons and were entitled to unpaid overtime.