Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.

Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 16, 2012 Decided June 18, 2012
Full case name	Michael Shane Christopher, et al., Petitioners v. Smithkline Beecham Corporation dba GlaxoSmithKline
Docket no.	11-204
Citations	567 U.S. 142 (more) 132 S. Ct. 2156; 183 L. Ed. 2d 153; 2012 U.S. LEXIS 4657; 19 WH Cases 2d 257; 80 U.S.L.W. 4463
Case history
Prior	Summary judgement granted to Glaxo, No. CV-08-1498-PHX-FJM (D. Ariz. 2009); affirmed, 635 F.3d 383 (9th Cir. 2011); cert. granted, 565 U.S. 1057 (2011).
Holding
The petitioners – pharmaceutical sales representatives whose primary duty is to obtain nonbinding commitments from physicians to prescribe their employer’s prescription drugs in appropriate cases – qualify as outside salesmen under the most reasonable interpretation of the Department of Labor’s regulations.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
Dissent	Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan
Laws applied
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938; 29 U.S.C. §§ 206-207 (2006 ed. and Supp. IV); 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1)

Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 567 U.S. 142 (2012), is a US labor law case of the United States Supreme Court.^[1] It held that pharmaceutical sales representatives were not eligible for overtime pay.^[2] The court ruled in a majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that sales representatives were classified as "outside salesmen" who are exempt from the Department of Labor's regulations regarding overtime pay.^[3]