A federal judge on Tuesday granted a nationwide preliminary injunction against the Labor Department’s new overtime rule — meaning the requirement is highly unlikely to take effect as scheduled Dec. 1. For many private duty agencies, the injunction is significant because the rule would have more than doubled the salary threshold for a worker to be entitled to overtime.
 
The overtime rule clarified which salaried employees were entitled to Fair Labor Standards Act minimum wage and overtime pay protections, and modified the minimum annual wage for salaried workers from the current rate of $23,660, or $455 per week, to $47,476, or $913 per week. Agencies found to have violated the requirement would have been subject to civil penalties of up to $1,894 per violation, plus back wages for the affected employees. Agencies found to be willfully violating the laws could have been prosecuted criminally and fined up to $10,000.
 
But U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant, who granted the injunction, said Labor’s rule was “contrary to the statutory text” as well as Congress’ intent.  
 
Twenty-one states including Nevada and Texas sought the preliminary injunction.
 
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a news release that the requirement would have hurt American workers. Labor’s change in the overtime rule “limits workplace flexibility without a corresponding increase in pay and forces employers to cut their workers’ hours,” Paxton said.