Opinion of the Court
The answer is no: Helix did not pay Hewitt on a salary basis as defined in §602(a). That section applies solely to employees paid by the week (or longer); it is not met when an employer pays an employee by the day, as Helix paid Hewitt. Daily-rate workers, of whatever income level, are paid on a salary basis only through the test set out in §604(b) (which, again, Helix’s payment scheme did not satisfy). Those conclusions follow from both the text and the structure of the regulations. And Helix’s various policy claims cannot justify departing from what the rules say.[1]
A
Consider again §602(a)’s text, focusing on how it excludes daily-rate workers. An employee, the regulation says, is paid on a salary basis if but only if he “receive[s] the full
- ↑ We appreciate Justice Gorsuch’s concern that the question we ask and answer is not quite the one Helix’s petition for certiorari urged upon us. As Justice Gorsuch explains, Helix’s petition framed the issue as whether an employee whose pay scheme meets the three-part test of the HCE rule (§541.601) also has to meet §604(b)’s conditions to be exempt from the FLSA. See post, at 1–2. But both parties’ merits briefing made clear the importance of an antecedent question: whether Hewitt’s pay scheme in fact satisfied the HCE rule’s salary-basis component, as set out in §602(a). See Brief for Petitioners 24–28 (lead argument); Brief for Respondent 14–28 (lead argument); Reply Brief 1–9 (lead argument). Resolution of that §602(a) issue is a necessary “predicate to an intelligent resolution of the question presented.” Caterpillar Inc. v. Lewis, 519 U. S. 61, 75, n. 13 (1996). Indeed, Helix’s counsel urged us to answer it—even assuming Helix would lose—rather than dismiss this case as improvidently granted. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 39–40 (“I would prefer that you just answer the question”—even if “adversely”—“because I don’t think there’s a basis for a DIG”). And our resolution of that predicate issue itself reveals the answer to Helix’s initial formulation of the question presented. In setting out the pertinent regulatory structure, we show that §602(a) and §604(b) are independent routes for satisfying the HCE rule’s salary-basis component. So a pay scheme meeting §602(a) and the HCE rule’s other requirements does not also have to meet §604(b) to make a worker exempt. See infra, at 13–14.
