Professional and Artistic Exemption
Professionals and Artists are also exempt from the
overtime law protections. A person employed in a professional capacity means
any employee who meets all of the following requirements:
- Who is licensed or certified by the State of
California and is primarily engaged in the practice of one of the following
recognized professions: law, medicine, dentistry, optometry, architecture,
engineering, teaching, or accounting, or
- Who is
- Primarily engaged in an occupation commonly
recognized as a learned or artistic profession. "Learned or artistic
profession" means an employee who is primarily engaged in the performance
of:
- Work requiring knowledge of an advance type in a
field or science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of
specialized intellectual instruction and study, as distinguished from a general
academic education and from an apprenticeship, and from training in the
performance of routine mental, manual, or physical processes, or work that is
an essential part of or necessarily incident to any of the above work;
or
Work that is original and creative in character in a recognized field
of artistic endeavor (as opposed to work which can be produced by a person
endowed with general manual or intellectual ability and training), and the
result of which depends primarily on the invention, imagination, or talent of
the employee or work that is an essential part of or necessarily incident to
any of the above work; and
Whose work is predominantly intellectual and
varied in character (as opposed to routine mental, manual, mechanical, or
physical work) and is of such character that the output produced or the result
accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of
time.
- Who customarily and regularly exercised discretion
an independent judgment in the performance of duties set forth above.
- Who earns a monthly salary equivalent to no less
than two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment. Full-time
employment means 40 hours per week as defined in Labor Code Section
515(c).
Regarding the requirement for the exemption to apply
that the employee "customarily and regularly exercises discretion and
independent judgment," this phrase means the comparison and evaluation of
possible courses of conduct and acting or making a decision after the various
possibilities have been considered. The employee must have the authority or
power to make an independent choice, free from immediate direction or
supervision and with respect to matters of significance. For the learned
professions, an advanced academic degree (above the bachelor level) is a
standard prerequisite.
For the artistic professions, work in a "recognized
field of artistic endeavor" includes such fields as music, writing, the
theater, and the plastic and graphic arts.
For a free consultation with an experienced employee
rights attorney, contact David Spivak:
- Email David@SpivakLaw.com
- Call toll free (877) 876-5744
- Visit The Spivak Law Firm, 16530 Ventura Boulevard Suite 312 Encino, CA 91436
- Fax (310) 499-4739
For further information on your rights in the work
place, please visit our other websites:
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