Long Island Care at Home, Ltd. v. Coke
The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Department of Labor regulation that exempts companionship workers who care for the elderly and infirm from federal minimum wage and overtime rules, even when those workers are paid by a staffing agency rather than by the family they serve.
The ruling means many home care workers employed by third-party agencies remain outside the Fair Labor Standards Act's wage protections, leaving Congress or the Department of Labor as the only paths to changing that coverage.
“Since on its face the regulation seems to fill a statutory gap, one might ask what precisely is it about the regulation that might make it unreasonable or otherwise unlawful?”
The Court frames why it saw no legal problem with the Department's rule extending the exemption to third-party-paid workers.
How it got here: A federal trial court dismissed the wage suit based on the regulation; the Second Circuit twice found the regulation unenforceable; the employer asked the Supreme Court to review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Evelyn Coke worked as a companionship-services provider for elderly and infirm people. She was employed by Long Island Care at Home, a home care agency, and its owner. Coke sued them, arguing she was owed unpaid minimum wages and overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which normally requires such payments unless a specific exemption applies.
The question before the Court
Could a federal labor regulation exempt home care companionship workers from minimum wage and overtime protections even when they were paid by an outside agency rather than by the family they cared for?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court held that the Department of Labor's regulation extending the FLSA's companionship-services exemption to workers paid by outside agencies is valid and binding. The statute left it to the Department to define key terms like "domestic service employment," and deciding whether third-party-paid workers count as exempt was one of the details Congress entrusted to the agency's expertise.
The Court also resolved an apparent conflict between two of the Department's own regulations by giving controlling weight to the more specific one covering third-party employment, and it rejected arguments that the rule was merely persuasive "interpretive" guidance or that the rulemaking process leading to it was legally defective. As a result, companionship workers paid by agencies like Long Island Care remain outside the FLSA's wage and hour protections.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Millions of home care workers who are hired through staffing agencies rather than directly by the families they help were left without a federal right to minimum wage or overtime pay. Home care agencies avoid added labor costs, while the decision also reinforces how much power federal courts give agencies to fill gaps left by Congress in the laws they administer.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower courts for further proceedings consistent with the ruling, meaning Coke's wage claims fail because the third-party regulation validly exempts her from FLSA coverage. This is a final decision on the merits of the regulation's validity, not a temporary order. Any change to this coverage gap would require new rulemaking by the Department of Labor or action by Congress, which the Department later did when it narrowed the exemption in 2013.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether excluding third-party-paid companionship workers from minimum wage and overtime protections is good policy, nor did it address workers employed directly by the families they serve, whose exempt status was not in dispute. It also left the Department free to revise the regulation through future rulemaking.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the Chevron framework, under which courts defer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of a gap Congress left in a statute the agency administers, so long as the agency stayed within its authority and followed proper procedures.
- Because the FLSA's companionship-services exemption did not specify whether workers paid by outside agencies were covered, and Congress had directed the Department of Labor to define the statute's terms, the Court concluded that resolving third-party coverage was exactly the kind of detail Congress left for the agency to work out.
- Two of the Department's own regulations appeared to conflict on this point, so the Court applied the principle that a more specific rule controls over a more general one, and treated the regulation squarely addressing third-party employment as governing over the broader definitional regulation.
- The Court also relied on the rule, drawn from Auer v. Robbins, that an agency's own reasonable interpretation of its ambiguous regulations controls unless plainly wrong, finding no reason to think the Department's explanation was an after-the-fact rationalization rather than its genuine, considered view.
- The Court rejected the claim that the regulation was merely a non-binding 'interpretive' rule, noting the Department used full public notice-and-comment procedures — a formal process not required for interpretive rules — which showed it intended the regulation to carry the force of law.
- Finally, applying the standard that a final rule must be a reasonably foreseeable outgrowth of the proposal the agency published, the Court found the 1974 notice-and-comment process adequate, since withdrawing an earlier proposal to narrow the exemption was a foreseeable and adequately explained outcome.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (467 U. S. 837)
Relies on Chevron's rule that courts must defer to an agency's reasonable gap-filling interpretation of its statute.
Reaffirms Auer v. Robbins (519 U. S. 452)
Applies Auer's rule that an agency's interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation controls unless plainly wrong.
Distinguishes Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hospital (488 U. S. 204)
Finds no unfair-surprise problem here because the Department used notice-and-comment rulemaking to signal its interpretive shift.