Accounting Convenience Is Not a “Reasonable Ground” to Deny Minimum-Wage Protections to Dangerous Live-In Caregivers

1. Introduction

Bolina v. AssureCare Adult Home LLC (Wash. July 9, 2026) addresses whether Washington’s former “live-in worker” exemption to the Washington Minimum Wage Act (MWA), former RCW 49.46.010(3)(j) (2013), violates the Washington Constitution’s privileges and immunities clause, WASH. CONST. art. I, § 12, as applied to live-in caregivers working in adult family homes.

The respondents—Jocylin Bolina, Adolfo Payag, Madonna Ocampo, Honorina Robles, Hollee Castillo, and Reginald Villalobos—were live-in caregivers at adult family homes operated by AssureCare and owned by Marcelina and Gerald Macandog. They alleged they worked extremely long schedules with interrupted sleep, meal breaks, and rest breaks, were paid a flat daily rate without overtime, and lacked statutory wage-and-hour safeguards that shift (non-live-in) caregivers receive.

The key constitutional issue was narrow: whether the live-in exemption unconstitutionally grants adult family homes a privilege or immunity by relieving them from MWA minimum-wage and overtime obligations for live-in caregivers, notwithstanding the constitutional mandate to protect workers in jobs “dangerous to life or deleterious to health,” WASH. CONST. art. II, § 35.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Supreme Court of Washington affirmed partial summary judgment for the caregivers and held: former RCW 49.46.010(3)(j) violates article I, section 12 as applied to live-in caregivers at adult family homes.

The court reasoned that (1) live-in caregiving at adult family homes is dangerous work within the meaning of article II, section 35, triggering a fundamental right of state citizenship to legislative health-and-safety protections “in the form of the MWA”; (2) the exemption confers a constitutional “privilege or immunity” by allowing adult family homes to avoid otherwise mandatory minimum-wage and overtime standards and thereby pay lower labor costs; and (3) the asserted rationale for the exemption—administrative/accounting difficulty in tracking compensable time for people who live where they work—is not a “reasonable ground” to deny constitutionally required safeguards in a dangerous occupation.

The court declined to decide whether the ruling should apply prospectively because that remedial question was not part of the certified order and remained live in the trial court.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

• Martinez-Cuevas v. DeRuyter Bros. Dairy, 196 Wn.2d 506, 475 P.3d 164 (2020)
  This is the case the court treated as controlling in structure and method. As in Martinez-Cuevas, the court tied article I, section 12’s heightened protection to article II, section 35’s command that the legislature enact “necessary laws” to protect workers in dangerous or health-deleterious employments. The court imported Martinez-Cuevas’s framing: where article II, section 35 applies, workers possess a “fundamental right of state citizenship” to statutory protections such as those supplied by the MWA, and exemptions that withhold those protections trigger article I, section 12 scrutiny.
• Schroeder v. Weighall, 179 Wn.2d 566, 316 P.3d 482 (2014) and Grant County Fire Prot. Dist. No. 5 v. City of Moses Lake, 150 Wn.2d 791, 83 P.3d 419 (2004)
  These cases supplied the modern article I, section 12 framework: when a fundamental right of state citizenship is implicated, courts ask whether the law grants a privilege or immunity and—if so—whether “reasonable grounds” justify it. The court emphasized Schroeder’s instruction that courts do not hypothesize justifying facts; instead, they scrutinize whether the distinction serves legislative goals “in fact and theory.”
• Bennett v. United States, 2 Wn.3d 430, 539 P.3d 361 (2023) and DeYoung v. Providence Med. Ctr., 136 Wn.2d 136, 960 P.2d 919 (1998)
  These cases were used to describe the “reasonable ground” test as heightened but not a mandate for open-ended courtroom factfinding for every legislative line-drawing.
• Berrocal v. Fernandez, 155 Wn.2d 585, 121 P.3d 82 (2005) and Strain v. W. Travel, Inc., 117 Wn. App. 251, 70 P.3d 158 (2003)
  These authorities recognized the practical timekeeping difficulties for workers who reside at the worksite and had previously treated that reality as a plausible basis for the live-in exemption. The court distinguished that rationale here by holding it cannot justify denying MWA safeguards where article II, section 35’s dangerousness mandate is triggered.
• McCleary v. State, 173 Wn.2d 477, 269 P.3d 227 (2012) and Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. State, 90 Wn.2d 476, 585 P.2d 71 (1978)
  These cases served an analogy about constitutional duties imposed on the legislature and the judiciary’s role in saying what the constitution requires while leaving implementation latitude to the legislative branch. The court used this analogy to explain why article II, section 35 creates a duty to legislate worker protections, and why the MWA can be the vehicle for that duty in the absence of an alternative statutory scheme.
• Anfinson v. FedEx Ground Package Sys., Inc., 174 Wn.2d 851, 281 P.3d 289 (2012)
  Cited for the proposition that Washington’s MWA was patterned after the FLSA and for general interpretive background about the MWA’s purposes and structure. (The concurrence also invoked Anfinson to emphasize the remedial purpose of minimum-wage laws.)
• Ranger Ins. Co. v. Pierce County, 164 Wn.2d 545, 192 P.3d 886 (2008); City of Sequim v. Malkasian, 157 Wn.2d 251, 138 P.3d 943 (2006); Locke v. City of Seattle, 162 Wn.2d 474, 172 P.3d 705 (2007); Sunnyside Valley Irrig. Dist. v. Dickie, 149 Wn.2d 873, 73 P.3d 369 (2003)
  These cases established the de novo standard of review for summary judgment and for statutory/constitutional interpretation.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. The court’s three-part article I, section 12 pathway (with article II, section 35 as the trigger)

1. Fundamental right of state citizenship.
   Relying on Martinez-Cuevas v. DeRuyter Bros. Dairy, the court held the caregivers satisfied the threshold requirement because article II, section 35 creates a fundamental right to legislative protections when a job is “dangerous to life or deleterious to health.” The majority held that live-in caregiving at adult family homes is dangerous work based on evidence of musculoskeletal injuries, risks from lifting/transferring residents, assault risk, and the compounding effects of extreme hours and sleep deprivation (including increased injury risk).
   
   The court rejected AssureCare’s attempt to recharacterize the exemption as mere “book-keeping,” reasoning that the constitutional inquiry centers on whether the occupation is dangerous as applied to those workers, not on whether the legislature found timekeeping inconvenient.
2. Privilege or immunity.
   Having found a fundamental right at stake, the court held the exemption grants adult family homes an “immunity” from otherwise mandatory labor standards and a “privilege” of lower labor costs—mirroring the characterization in Martinez-Cuevas.
3. No “reasonable ground”.
   The asserted justification for the distinction—difficulty calculating work time for someone who lives at the workplace—was recognized as an idea the court had previously discussed in Berrocal v. Fernandez (and similarly in Strain v. W. Travel, Inc.). But the court held that justification collapses once article II, section 35 is engaged: for dangerous jobs, administrative convenience and feared financial consequences are not “reasonable grounds” to deny the “basic worker safeguards” the MWA provides. The opinion framed “dangerousness” as the “lodestar” that changes the constitutional calculus.

B. The court’s handling of alternative constitutional and policy arguments

• Equal protection was not decided.
  Although amici urged strict or heightened scrutiny under an equal protection theory, the court declined to reach it because it was not raised by the parties in the discretionary review posture and remained pending below.
• Discriminatory origins were acknowledged but not required for decision.
  The caregivers argued the historical exclusion of domestic workers from the FLSA and early MWA reflected racism and misogyny. The majority noted the “disturbing history” and cited scholarly authority in a footnote but expressly declined to decide whether the Washington exemption reflected similar motivations, holding the exemption failed the “reasonable ground” test regardless.
• Prospective-only application was not decided.
  The court treated prospectivity as a remedial issue not included in the certified controlling-question order and therefore premature for resolution on discretionary review.

3.3 Impact

• Narrow but consequential: as-applied invalidation for live-in adult family home caregivers.
  The holding is expressly “as applied,” which preserves the possibility that the live-in exemption could remain constitutional in other settings (especially those not “dangerous to life or deleterious to health”). But for adult family home live-in caregiving, the exemption cannot be used to deny MWA protections.
• Strengthens article II, section 35 as a gateway to heightened article I, section 12 scrutiny.
  The decision reinforces Martinez-Cuevas’s architecture: once a profession is found dangerous/health-deleterious under article II, section 35, courts will treat statutory carveouts from health-and-safety-protective labor standards as constitutionally suspect “privileges or immunities,” demanding genuine justification rather than administrative convenience.
• Recalibrates reliance on timekeeping/“live-in” rationales recognized in earlier wage-and-hour cases.
  Berrocal v. Fernandez remains relevant for the proposition that timekeeping can be hard for live-in work, but Bolina limits that rationale’s constitutional weight where the work is dangerous. The practical takeaway is that “difficulty counting hours” may justify alternative compensation models only if they do not amount to withholding baseline protections from workers constitutionally entitled to safeguards.
• Litigation and compliance pressure on long-term care business models.
  Adult family home operators using flat daily rates and expecting near-constant availability will face increased exposure to minimum-wage and overtime claims. The opinion’s focus on interrupted sleep, interrupted breaks, and long hours also signals that “live-in” status will not immunize employers from scrutiny of how availability time and working time function in practice.
• Legislative response incentives.
  The court repeatedly framed the problem as the absence of a statutory framework ensuring worker safeguards in this industry. This invites legislative work: if the State believes a different model than the MWA is appropriate for live-in adult family home caregiving, it must still supply constitutionally adequate protections rather than leaving them to employer discretion.
• Open questions.
  The court did not decide (1) equal protection, (2) discriminatory motive, (3) the retroactive/prospective scope of relief, or (4) the boundaries of what evidence is required in future cases to classify an occupation as dangerous or deleterious to health under article II, section 35—issues highlighted by the dissent.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• “As-applied” vs. “facial” challenge:
  A facial challenge claims a law is unconstitutional in all its applications. An as-applied challenge claims the law is unconstitutional in the specific context at issue. Here, the court held the live-in exemption is unconstitutional as applied to live-in caregivers at adult family homes.
• Privileges and immunities clause (Washington):
  Washington’s article I, section 12 prevents the State from granting special legal advantages (“privileges”) or shields from obligations (“immunities”) to some classes but not others when a fundamental right of state citizenship is implicated. The analysis used here (from Schroeder and Martinez-Cuevas) asks: (1) is a fundamental state-citizenship right implicated, (2) is a privilege/immunity granted, and (3) is there a “reasonable ground” for it.
• Article II, section 35 (dangerous or health-deleterious work):
  This constitutional provision directs the legislature to pass laws protecting workers in dangerous or health-deleterious employments. The majority treated this duty as creating, for such workers, a fundamental right to legislative safeguards—here, the protections of the MWA where no substitute statutory scheme was shown.
• “Reasonable ground” test (not ordinary rational basis):
  Under Schroeder v. Weighall, courts do not invent hypothetical facts to justify the legislative line; they scrutinize whether the distinction actually serves legislative objectives. In Bolina, “accounting difficulty” was deemed insufficient to justify withholding protections constitutionally owed to workers in a dangerous job.
• Summary judgment posture:
  Summary judgment is granted only when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The dissent argued the record was underdeveloped and disputed; the majority treated the evidence as sufficient to classify the occupation as dangerous for constitutional purposes.
• Prospective application:
  Whether a new constitutional ruling applies only going forward (prospective) or also to past conduct (retroactive) is often a remedial question. The court declined to decide it because the trial court had not ruled on it and the certified question did not include it.

5. Conclusion

Bolina v. AssureCare Adult Home LLC extends and operationalizes Martinez-Cuevas v. DeRuyter Bros. Dairy in a new setting: long-term residential caregiving. The court’s core doctrinal move is to treat article II, section 35 as the constitutional trigger that turns wage-and-hour exclusions into article I, section 12 problems when the exclusion withholds baseline safeguards from workers in dangerous (or health-deleterious) employments.

The new precedent is practical and pointed: administrative convenience in tracking hours is not a “reasonable ground” to deny MWA protections to live-in caregivers in adult family homes when the work is dangerous within the meaning of article II, section 35. The decision leaves open major remedial and doctrinal questions (equal protection, motive, and retroactivity), but it meaningfully reshapes the constitutional landscape for labor exemptions in Washington where worker safety and health risks are central.