FLSA Administrative Exemption: Mere Compliance with Governing Law Does Not Transform Frontline Investigators into “Legal Compliance” Staff

Introduction

In Robert Bumgardner v. Forensic Pathology Services, P.C. (11th Cir. Feb. 10, 2026) (per curiam) (not for publication), former forensic death investigators sued their employer, Forensic Pathology Services, P.C. (“FPS”), and its CEO, Dr. Carol A. Terry, M.D., alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) overtime requirement.

FPS operated as the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office under the Georgia Death Investigation Act. The investigators acted as Dr. Terry’s “eyes and ears,” determining statutory jurisdiction, documenting scenes, interviewing witnesses, examining bodies, coordinating transport, liaising with families, and preparing written reports incorporated into official medical examiner records.

The central issue on appeal was whether these investigators fell within the FLSA’s administrative exemption—specifically, whether their “primary duty” was office/non-manual work “directly related to the management or general business operations” of FPS, 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2). FPS argued the investigators were effectively “legal and regulatory compliance” employees because they first had to determine whether Georgia law authorized FPS to take jurisdiction over a death.

Summary of the Opinion

The Eleventh Circuit held that the administrative exemption did not apply. Relying on Fowler v. OSP Prevention Group, Inc., 38 F.4th 103 (11th Cir. 2022), the court concluded the investigators were “production” employees producing FPS’s core service—death-investigation services—rather than “administrative” employees who run or service the business itself.

The court rejected FPS’s attempt to recast frontline investigative work as “legal compliance” merely because it must be performed within statutory limits. The district court therefore erred by denying plaintiffs’ Rule 50 motion for judgment as a matter of law on the administrative-exemption defense. Because that defense was the sole basis for the jury’s verdict for defendants, the Eleventh Circuit reversed, vacated the judgment, and remanded for a new trial.

Note: The panel also observed that it did not need to reach other arguments (including the “first responder” regulation and the exemption’s discretion prong) because the defense failed at the “management or general business operations” prong.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

  • Fowler v. OSP Prevention Group, Inc., 38 F.4th 103 (11th Cir. 2022)
    Role in this decision: Controlling authority on the administration/production distinction as applied to investigators performing factfinding central to the employer’s business. Fowler held property-damage investigators were not administrative because they did not run or service general business operations; they performed the company’s core investigative service. The court treated FPS’s death investigators as materially analogous: their evidence-gathering and reporting produced FPS’s core output (death-investigation services).

    Key doctrinal carryover: The exemption generally covers “back office” functions (e.g., HR, finance, compliance programs) rather than frontline service delivery—even when frontline workers use judgment, follow procedures, and their work is “essential” to the business.

  • McGinnis v. Am. Home Mortg. Servicing, Inc., 817 F.3d 1241 (11th Cir. 2016) and Beckwith v. City of Daytona Beach Shores, 58 F.3d 1554 (11th Cir. 1995)
    Role in this decision: These cases supplied the appellate standard for reviewing judgment as a matter of law: de novo review; view evidence in the non-movant’s favor; do not resolve credibility disputes; ask whether a reasonable jury had a legally sufficient evidentiary basis. Applying that framework, the court concluded the record could not legally support the jury’s finding on the administrative exemption’s second prong.

  • Icicle Seafoods, Inc. v. Worthington, 475 U.S. 709 (1986)
    Role in this decision: Cited for the proposition that whether an FLSA exemption applies is characterized as a “legal question.” The panel noted the parties treated the issue as one of evidentiary sufficiency, and the opinion should not be read to resolve that characterization dispute in general.

  • Davis v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., 587 F.3d 529 (2nd Cir. 2009)
    Role in this decision: Used (as in Fowler) to articulate the conceptual difference between producing a business’s “primary output” and performing general administrative work applicable to running almost any enterprise.

  • Grage v. N. States Power Co.-Minn., 813 F.3d 1051 (8th Cir. 2015) and Renfro v. Ind. Mich. Power Co., 370 F.3d 512 (6th Cir. 2004)
    Role in this decision: Cited to illustrate that some administrative work is “ancillary” support to principal production activity (e.g., processing payments), underscoring what “running or servicing” a business looks like when contrasted with frontline production.

  • Brown v. Nexus Bus. Sols., LLC, 29 F.4th 1315 (11th Cir. 2022)
    Role in this decision: Cited to note that the “exercise of discretion” analysis belongs to the exemption’s third prong, which the court did not reach because defendants failed on prong two.

Legal Reasoning

  1. Start with the regulatory test—then stop at prong two.
    The administrative exemption requires three elements under 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a). The panel resolved the appeal on § 541.200(a)(2) alone: whether the investigators’ primary duty was directly related to “management or general business operations.”

  2. Apply the administration/production distinction from Fowler.
    The opinion treats FPS’s “product” as death-investigation services. The investigators gathered evidence, documented scenes, interviewed witnesses, and produced written reports—work that directly delivered that service. That is classic “production” work under Fowler, not “administrative” work of running or servicing the business itself.

  3. Reject “legal compliance” as a re-labeling strategy.
    FPS attempted to convert production work into exempt administrative work by emphasizing that investigators must comply with the Georgia Death Investigation Act, especially via a jurisdictional determination. The court held that equating ordinary compliance-with-law (a feature of nearly all jobs) with “legal and regulatory compliance” as a functional administrative area would collapse the administration/production distinction and sweep “huge swaths” of workers out of FLSA protections.

    The court reinforced this point with regulatory examples: 29 C.F.R. § 541.203(j) suggests that inspectors/investigators (e.g., fire safety, building code, health/sanitation) generally do not satisfy prong two—despite operating under detailed legal regimes.

  4. Even the jurisdiction check was not shown to be the “primary duty.”
    The court observed that defendants did not (and could not on this record) show that jurisdiction determinations consumed anything like a majority of investigators’ time or outweighed the importance of their core evidence-gathering duties. Moreover, the record suggested investigators used a mandatory question list (“green sheet”) and Dr. Terry had the ultimate call—further undermining the notion that the jurisdiction function was exempt administrative “compliance” work.

  5. Discretion and “importance” do not turn production into administration.
    Defendants’ attempted distinctions (more varied cases than Fowler, “awesome responsibility,” etc.) were either irrelevant to prong two or foreclosed by Fowler, which already rejected the argument that significance/importance of the work makes it administrative.

Impact

  • Constrains overbroad “compliance” classifications. Employers in regulated industries cannot convert frontline service roles into administrative-exempt positions merely by emphasizing that the work must comply with statutes, regulations, or jurisdictional limits.

  • Strengthens the production framing for investigative services. Businesses whose core offering is investigative or factfinding work face a steeper burden to characterize investigators as “administrative” under § 541.200(a)(2), particularly in the Eleventh Circuit post-Fowler.

  • Trial-level consequences. The administrative-exemption defense was the sole basis for the verdict; once it failed as a matter of law, the judgment could not stand, requiring a new trial. On remand, disputes about hours worked, damages, willfulness, recordkeeping, and any other preserved defenses (e.g., the executive exemption as to Bumgardner, or other issues mentioned in the opinion’s footnote) may become pivotal.

  • Guidance for jury instructions and litigation strategy. The jury’s question seeking a definition of “legal and regulatory compliance” illustrates how easily the label can mislead. Future litigants can be expected to focus more sharply on prong two’s “running or servicing” concept and on concrete evidence of time allocation and functional role—rather than semantics.

Complex Concepts Simplified

  • FLSA “administrative exemption” (in plain terms): A narrow carveout from overtime for higher-level office roles that help run the business (or provide general support functions), not for workers whose main job is delivering what the business sells.

  • “Production” vs. “administration”: “Production” means making the product or delivering the service. “Administration” means managing the enterprise or providing broad support (HR, finance, procurement, formal compliance programs) that keeps the enterprise operating.

  • “Primary duty”: The main job duty—the most important function—considering time spent, relative importance, and supervision. A task can be important without being the “primary duty.”

  • “Legal and regulatory compliance” (as used here): The court treated this as a back-office functional area (e.g., designing and administering compliance systems/policies), not the everyday reality that most jobs must follow laws while doing their core work.

  • Judgment as a matter of law (Rule 50): A mechanism allowing the judge (and later the appellate court) to take an issue away from the jury when no legally sufficient evidentiary basis supports the verdict on that issue.

Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision reinforces a clear rule: frontline investigators who perform the factfinding work that constitutes an employer’s core service are “production” employees for purposes of the FLSA administrative exemption, even when their work necessarily includes ensuring the investigation proceeds only when authorized by statute. Labeling such work “legal compliance” does not satisfy the exemption’s requirement that the employee’s primary duty relate to “management or general business operations.”

Anchored in Fowler v. OSP Prevention Group, Inc., 38 F.4th 103 (11th Cir. 2022), the opinion curbs a potentially expansive misclassification theory that would have threatened overtime protections across regulated industries, and it provides practical guidance: courts should evaluate what the employee actually produces for the business, not whether the employee must follow the law while producing it.