Robert Bumgardner v. Forensic Pathology Services, P.C.

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Decided: February 10, 2026
• Docket: 25-10673
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 1 of 21

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-10673 ____________________

ROBERT BUMGARDNER, LESLIE BURETA, SHANNON BYERS, LARRY LEON HARRISON, ASHLEY BRYANT, VICTOR LONG, Plaintiffs-Appellants, SHANNON VOLKODAV, Plaintiffs, versus

FORENSIC PATHOLOGY SERVICES, P.C., CAROL A. TERRY, M.D., Defendants-Appellees. USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 2 of 21

2 Opinion of the Court 25-10673 ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-01314-JPB ____________________

Before ROSENBAUM, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), workers in ad- ministrative roles like “legal and regulatory compliance” aren’t en- titled to extra pay for overtime work. Defendants-Appellees Fo- rensic Pathology Services, P.C. (“FPS”), and its CEO, Dr. Carol A. Terry, contend that FPS’s forensic death investigators, who inves- tigate unexpected or non-natural deaths in Gwinnett County, Georgia, fit this category. FPS operates under the authority of the Georgia Death In- vestigation Act. Naturally, the company takes care to examine and remove bodies from the scene of death only if the law authorizes it to do so. FPS’s investigators make sure they have jurisdiction over a body before diving into their investigation. In Defendants’ view, this makes the investigators “legal compliance” employees who don’t have a right to overtime pay. Defendants are mistaken. Our precedent in Fowler v. OSP Prevention Group, Inc., 38 F.4th 103 (11th Cir. 2022), squarely fore- closes their argument. That decision makes clear that “administrative” employees help run a business by setting standards for others or by performing USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 3 of 21

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the general functions involved in running any business. The ex- emption doesn’t apply to line-level “production” employees who produce the goods or services that the business offers. Plaintiffs-Appellants, six former forensic death investigators at FPS, fall into this second category. Their factfinding helped pro- duce FPS’s core “product” of death-investigation services. FPS and Dr. Terry provide no authority to support their view that if an em- ployee adheres to state law while producing their employer’s core product, that somehow makes their work “administrative” within the meaning of the FLSA. And if that were so, huge swaths of the American workforce would be subject to the FLSA’s “administra- tive” exemption, meaning the FLSA’s wage protections would not apply to them. We therefore conclude that the district court erred by deny- ing Plaintiffs’ motion for judgment as a matter of law on Defend- ants’ administrative-exemption defense. This defense was the sole basis for the jury’s verdicts for FPS and Dr. Terry. So we vacate the court’s judgment and remand the case for a new trial.

I. BACKGROUND A. The Parties Dr. Terry is a forensic pathologist who functions as the chief medical examiner for Gwinnett County, Georgia. As chief medical examiner, Dr. Terry conducts post-mortem examinations of deaths in Gwinnett County that are sudden, unexplained, or due to non- USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 4 of 21

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natural causes. She was appointed to the role under the Georgia Death Investigation Act. Dr. Terry also is the chief executive officer of FPS. Gwinnett County and FPS have contracted so that the company operates as the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office. FPS employs several forensic death investigators, who gather evidence to help Dr. Terry determine decedents’ causes of death. It also employs forensic technicians, who assist Dr. Terry with autopsies. Plaintiffs-Appellants are six former employees of FPS, where they worked as death investigators. One of them, Bumgardner, was a “senior” investigator. B. The Forensic Death Investigator Role FPS’s death investigators operate as Dr. Terry’s “eyes and ears” to help her determine the cause and manner of a person’s death. As Dr. Terry explained at trial, she is not personally able to visit every scene of death or engage with every decedent’s family members. So FPS’s investigators collect evidence on her behalf. They take photographs of the scene, speak with law-enforcement officials and witnesses, and examine the body for injuries and signs of natural disease. Not every death falls within the chief medical examiner’s ju- risdiction, though. Georgia law requires a medical examiner to in- quire into certain categories of deaths, mainly those that are sud- den, unexplained, or due to non-natural causes. See Ga. Code Ann. § 45-16-24(a)(1)–(10), (b). So the first thing FPS investigators do when a death is reported is to determine whether it falls within Dr. USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 5 of 21

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Terry’s jurisdiction. Only about one-third of the deaths reported to FPS do. If the investigator concludes that a body needs further exam- ination, she sends it to the medical examiner’s office. To do so, the investigator tags the body, ensures it is placed in a body bag, and calls a transport service to bring the body in. Dr. Terry then con- ducts an examination, which can range from examining the outside of the body to a full autopsy. The investigators serve as a “conduit” between Dr. Terry and the decedent’s family, gathering additional information from family members and providing updates about the chief medical examiner’s conclusions. The investigators later memorialize the information they’ve learned in a written report that forms part of the official medical examiner’s report. One plaintiff, Robert Bumgardner, had additional responsi- bilities as a senior investigator. Sometimes, he would recommend that FPS hire certain people as investigators, and he once gave in- put on whether to fire an investigator. Bumgardner also shared responsibility for training new investigators after they began at FPS. Yet Bumgardner continued to perform the same investigative functions as FPS’s other forensic death investigators, so he was able to swap shifts with non-senior investigators. C. Procedural History In 2021, the Department of Labor investigated FPS’s com- pliance with the FLSA. The Department informed Dr. Terry that its investigation revealed violations of the FLSA’s minimum-wage, USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 6 of 21

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overtime, and recordkeeping requirements. But the Department ultimately declined to litigate. Instead, a group of former forensic death investigators (“Plaintiffs”) sued FPS and Dr. Terry (collectively, “Defendants”) in April 2022 under the FLSA’s private right of action. Plaintiffs alleged that Defendants violated the FLSA’s requirement to pay one-and-a-half times the normal rate of pay for overtime work. After discovery, Defendants moved for summary judgment. As relevant here, they asserted an affirmative defense that the FLSA’s overtime provision doesn’t apply to Plaintiffs because, they claimed, Plaintiffs qualify for the FLSA’s administrative exemp- tion. 1 After reviewing our decision in Fowler v. OSP Prevention Group, Inc., 38 F.4th 103 (11th Cir. 2022), the district court denied Defendants’ motion. Nine months later, the district court conducted a seven-day trial. Before the judge charged the jury, Plaintiffs moved for judg- ment as a matter of law on whether the FLSA’s administrative ex- emption applied. The court denied the motion and instructed the jury, which reached verdicts favoring Defendants as to all seven Plaintiffs. For each, the jury’s sole finding was that the FLSA’s ad- ministrative exemption applied, making that Plaintiff ineligible for overtime pay. Plaintiffs renewed their motion for judgment as a

1 Defendants’ motion also asserted that the FLSA’s executive exemption ap-

plies to Bumgardner, that certain time Plaintiffs put in at FPS doesn’t consti- tute “work,” and that Plaintiffs’ claims were time-barred. The district court denied the motion on these grounds as well. USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 7 of 21

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matter of law on the administrative exemption. The court again denied the motion. Ultimately, the clerk entered judgment in favor of Defend- ants. Six Plaintiffs timely appealed.

II. LEGAL STANDARD We review de novo a district court’s ruling on a motion for judgment as a matter of law. McGinnis v. Am. Home Mortg. Servicing, Inc., 817 F.3d 1241, 1254 (11th Cir. 2016). A party may move under Rule 50(a) for judgment as a mat- ter of law after a party has been fully heard on an issue but before the court submits the case to the jury. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a). After judgment, the party may renew its motion under Rule 50(b). The legal standard is the same under either rule. McGinnis, 817 F.3d at 1254. The court must determine whether “a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the [non- moving] party on that issue.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(1). The court “must evaluate all the evidence, together with any logical infer- ences, in the light most favorable to the non-moving party,” but it must not resolve conflicts in the evidence or make credibility de- terminations. McGinnis, 817 F.3d at 1254 (quoting Beckwith v. City of Daytona Beach Shores, 58 F.3d 1554, 1560 (11th Cir. 1995)). USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 8 of 21

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III. DISCUSSION At the close of trial, the jury reached verdicts in Defendants’ favor as to all seven Plaintiffs.2 These verdicts each made a single finding: that Defendants had established their affirmative defense that the investigator fell within the FLSA administrative exemp- tion. Plaintiffs argue that the district court should have granted their renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on this issue for any of three reasons. First, they contend that Defendants pro- vided no evidence that Plaintiffs’ primary duty was “the perfor- mance of office or non-manual work directly related to the man- agement or general business operations of the employer.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2). Second, and relatedly, they assert Defend- ants failed to present evidence that their primary duty included the

2 The district court previously recognized that an eighth plaintiff, Dallas Wil-

liams, was not a part of the case by the time the court entered its pretrial order. Its Consolidated Pretrial Order listed seven Plaintiffs—omitting Williams’s name—as the “correct and complete” set of Plaintiffs. And the Order “super- sede[d]” and amended the pleadings “to conform hereto.” ECF No. 82 at 25 ¶ 29; cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(c)(2)(B). For that reason, Williams’s earlier and inef- fective attempt to voluntarily dismiss himself from the case does not bear on our jurisdiction. To be sure, Williams filed his purported notice of voluntary dismissal after Defendants answered the complaint, and it lacked the stipula- tion of all parties who had appeared. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A). But the district court’s Consolidated Pretrial Order later validly dismissed Williams from the case. So the clerk’s judgment following trial was a final, appealable judgment. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We therefore have no need to consider the court’s later judgment nunc pro tunc, apparently placed on the docket to re- solve concerns over Williams’s status. USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 9 of 21

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exercise of discretion and independent judgment about matters of significance. And third, Plaintiffs posit that the FLSA’s “first re- sponder regulation”—which generally makes the FLSA’s execu- tive, administrative, and professional exemptions inapplicable to police officers, fire fighters, investigators, paramedics, and similar employees, 29 C.F.R. § 541.3(b)(1)—excludes Plaintiffs from the ad- ministrative exemption. We don’t need to go beyond the first argument. Under a straightforward reading of our precedent, Plaintiffs’ role as investi- gators doesn’t directly relate to the “management or general busi- ness operations” of FPS. 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2). 3 That short- coming is dispositive. So the district court erred in holding that the jury had a sufficient evidentiary basis to conclude that the FLSA administrative exemption covers Plaintiffs. 4 A. The Administrative Exemption The FLSA carves out employees “employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity” from its mini- mum-wage and overtime protections. 29 U.S.C. § 213(a). It also

3 An employee can also qualify for the FLSA administrative exemption if his

primary duty directly relates to the “management or general business opera- tions” of his employer’s customers. 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2). No one argues that Plaintiffs fall within the exemption for that reason. 4 Because the parties presume that the question is one of factual sufficiency,

we consider this appeal on those grounds. But this opinion should not be read to take a position on that premise. See Icicle Seafoods, Inc. v. Worthington, 475 U.S. 709, 713 (1986) (characterizing “whether an exemption to the FLSA ap- plies in a particular case” as a “legal question”). USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 10 of 21

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makes that carveout subject to the way “such terms are defined and delimited from time to time by regulations of the Secretary [of La- bor].” Id. The Secretary defines an “employee employed in a bona fide administrative capacity” as any employee: (1) Compensated on a salary or fee basis that exceeds a certain rate of pay;

(2) “Whose primary duty is the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the manage- ment or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers;” and

(3) “Whose primary duty includes the exercise of dis- cretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.”

29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a). We have explained that a defendant must satisfy each of these prongs to show that the exemption applies. Fowler, 38 F.4th at 106. The Secretary has given further guidance about the second prong—that is, evaluating whether the employee’s primary duty is “the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2). To meet that requirement, “an employee must perform work directly re- lated to assisting with the running or servicing of the business, as USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 11 of 21

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distinguished, for example, from working on a manufacturing pro- duction line or selling a product in a retail or service establish- ment.” Id. § 541.201(a). The parties don’t meaningfully dispute which tasks make up the investigators’ primary duty. 5 Instead, the relevant question is whether that duty directly relates to FPS’s “general business oper- ations” within the meaning of the FLSA administrative exemption. And our precedent controls that question. B. Factfinding Investigators Under Fowler Our decision in Fowler requires us to conclude that Plaintiffs aren’t administrative employees. In that case, we considered whether two property-damage investigators who worked with broadband infrastructure fell within the FLSA administrative ex- emption. We held that they didn’t satisfy the exemption’s second prong because they weren’t part of their employer’s management and “did not run or service the general business operations of the company.” Id. at 114. Two aspects of Fowler control the result here. First, we ex- plained how the administrative exemption’s second prong distin- guishes administrative work from production work. Second, we

5 The parties debate the degree to which those tasks constitute “office or non-

manual work,” another aspect of the exemption’s second prong. 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a). Because Plaintiffs’ primary duty doesn’t directly relate to FPS’s “general business operations,” we don’t need to wade into that dispute. USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 12 of 21

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applied that understanding to factfinding investigators who were highly analogous to the death investigators in this case. 1. The Administration/Production Distinction The more general lesson from Fowler is the difference be- tween production and administrative work. Production employ- ees “perform the core function of the business”—producing the goods or services that the business offers to the public. Id. at 110– 11. Administrative employees, in contrast, have a primary duty that directly relates either to managing others or to “running [the] business” as a whole. Id. at 113. To flesh out this distinction, we reviewed the long list of “functional areas” the Secretary of Labor identifies as administra- tive work. Id. at 109–10. Those areas include accounting, procure- ment, finance, human resources, and “legal and regulatory compli- ance.” See 29 C.F.R. § 541.201(b). Each is the sort of support func- tion necessary for nearly any business. See Davis v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., 587 F.3d 529, 535 (2nd Cir. 2009) (distinguishing the work to produce the “primary output of a business” from “general administrative work applicable to the running of any business”). We identified a common thread in these functional areas. Employees performing these functions often help to define policies for a business’s production employees to follow. For example, a human-resources officer might develop procedures for employees to report unsafe or inappropriate conduct by their peers. So the exemption’s second prong “draws a line between administrative employees, who help run the business by setting standards, and USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 13 of 21

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‘production’ employees, who help the business run by following the standards that have been set for them.” Fowler, 38 F.4th at 110. Of course, an employee can help run or service the business without creating policies. For instance, consider a member of a finance department who processes payments to a company’s ven- dors. That employee is administrative because she “is simply per- forming ‘work that is ancillary to an employer’s principal produc- tion activity.’” Grage v. N. States Power Co.-Minn., 813 F.3d 1051, 1056 (8th Cir. 2015) (alterations accepted) (quoting Renfro v. Ind. Mich. Power Co., 370 F.3d 512, 517 (6th Cir. 2004)). To put it another way, the FLSA’s administrative exemption generally applies to “back office” employees who manage others or perform a supporting function that “assist[s] with the running or servicing of the business” as a whole. 29 C.F.R. § 541.201(a). It doesn’t apply to line-level production employees—whether they work on a traditional “manufacturing production line,” id., or at a business that “provide[s] investigative services,” Fowler, 38 F.4th at 111. 2. Investigators as Production Employees After explaining the difference between production and ad- ministrative work, we then applied the exemption’s second prong to the “factfinding investigators” in Fowler. Id. at 112. Those inves- tigators examined damage to broadband infrastructure, deter- mined who was liable for the damage, and calculated how much repairs would cost. Id. at 106–07. Considering their company’s USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 14 of 21

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“core function of damage investigations,” we concluded the plain- tiffs’ “investigative factfinding duties amounted to production work.” Id. at 114. So, we said, they weren’t covered by the admin- istrative exemption. Id. The same principle governs here—simply swap out “dam- age investigations” for “death investigations.” Just as in Fowler, Plaintiffs in this case were involved in production of their em- ployer’s core service—death investigations. Like the Fowler inves- tigators, Plaintiffs similarly “interviewed witnesses, . . . preserved evidence, took photographs, and . . . wrote reports and submitted them to their supervisors.” Id. at 113. And the parties agree Plain- tiffs had to follow “prescribed procedures” when doing so, even if they used their professional “judgment to decide the order of the steps in their investigations and what inferences to draw from the data they gathered.” Id. So no matter how much their work was “essential to the service [FPS] provides,” the investigators didn’t “run or service the general business operations of the company.” Id. at 113–14. C. Compliance with the Georgia Death Investigation Act Defendants’ contrary argument stretches the FLSA regula- tion’s reference to “legal and regulatory compliance” far past its breaking point. Because Plaintiffs must first determine whether they have jurisdiction over a case under the Georgia Death Inves- tigation Act before they perform their forensic investigation, De- fendants contend that 100 percent of Plaintiffs’ investigative work USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 15 of 21

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directly relates to “legal compliance” with the Georgia Death In- vestigation Act. Indeed, Defendants label the jurisdictional deter- mination “the most critical part of FPS’s general [business] opera- tions.” This view incorrectly conflates any employee’s adherence to the law with the back-office function of “legal compliance.” Legal compliance was the only ground Defendants offered the jury to conclude that Plaintiffs met the administrative exemp- tion’s second prong. Again, that prong requires an employee’s pri- mary duty to be “the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers.” 29. C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2). In closing arguments, Defendants’ counsel told ju- rors that “legal compliance” was the single, “key” way that Plain- tiffs’ primary duty related to FPS’s general business operations. And he elaborated that “determining legal compliance” with the Georgia Death Investigation Act satisfied the second prong. The record shows the jury had the same focus. After less than a half-hour of deliberation, the jury submitted its only ques- tion, asking for a more specific definition of the regulation’s refer- ence to “legal and regulatory compliance.” The court explained that the regulation had no further detail and asked the jurors to use their “best judgment.” Less than 45 minutes later, the jury re- turned verdicts against all seven Plaintiffs. But the record can’t sup- port this finding. USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 16 of 21

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1. The Scope of “Legal Compliance” Defendants point to no evidence that Plaintiffs’ primary duty directly relates to the type of “legal compliance” relevant to the FLSA exemption. Rather, Defendants’ attempt to reframe in- vestigative work as legal compliance misapprehends the governing regulation. Even if we focus on the investigators’ determination of whether their office had jurisdiction over a given death, no evi- dence indicates that this function was their primary duty. We’ll start with the argument Defendants make on appeal. Defendants are plainly wrong to assert that Plaintiffs’ core investi- gative duties constitute “legal compliance.” Complying with appli- cable laws and regulations is critical for every regulated business. So accepting Defendants’ argument that complying with the Georgia law that governs their industry somehow turns Plaintiffs into ad- ministrative employees would have an extraordinary result. It would mean that all employees in regulated industries are “admin- istrative.” But that position has no basis in law. First, it would dissolve the administration/production dis- tinction Fowler articulates. As we’ve noted, under Defendants’ the- ory, even the most paradigmatic line-level production employee would fall within the administrative exemption if his work must comply with applicable statutes or regulations. But Defendants provide no basis to think that the FLSA or related regulations con- template this outcome. Second, in fact, the contrary is true. The regulation provides examples of roles that are or are not subject to the administrative USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 17 of 21

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exemption, and these examples cut strongly against Defendants’ view. The regulation explains that “[p]ublic sector inspectors or investigators” in areas such as fire safety, building code inspection, or health and sanitation generally don’t satisfy the second prong. 29 C.F.R. § 541.203(j). But statutes and regulations govern public employees in these roles far more tightly than they do private em- ployees. And the more that applicable law imposes “known stand- ards or prescribed procedures,” the less appropriate the administra- tive exemption becomes. Id. The regulation also discusses many nuances about which employees in the financial-services industry—a quintessential reg- ulated industry—fall under the administrative exemption. Id. § 541.203(b). If Defendants’ view were right, this detail would be unnecessary because all financial-services employees’ roles would relate to legal and regulatory compliance. Every worker must take care to ensure he complies with the law. But a delivery driver doesn’t become a “legal compliance” employee when he stops for a red light. Next, we consider the one responsibility Defendants identify that is even arguably administrative “legal compliance”—the inves- tigators’ initial determination of statutory jurisdiction. But even if we assumed that this duty can be deemed administrative work, that wouldn’t solve Defendants’ problem. At the outset, it’s unclear that the jurisdiction determina- tions are the sort of “legal compliance” work the FLSA exemption USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 18 of 21

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contemplates. The investigators in Fowler were non-exempt pro- duction employees, even though they “review[ed] permits and ap- plicable dig laws” and recommended who was legally liable for property damage according to set criteria. Fowler, 38 F.4th at 108, 110. Similarly, the jury heard unrebutted testimony that investiga- tors determining jurisdiction had to ask the person reporting a death a list of “mandatory” questions the investigators referred to as the “green sheet.” And Dr. Terry testified that she had the ulti- mate call about jurisdiction. But even if Defendants could show that these jurisdiction determinations qualify as “legal compliance,” they have a more fundamental problem: no evidence suggests that the investigators’ “primary duty” was determining jurisdiction. Defendants do not even contend otherwise. And the record reflects that Plaintiffs’ pri- mary duty involved determining the causes of death in cases over which they had jurisdiction. So Defendants’ description of Plain- tiffs’ investigative work as 100 percent directly related to “legal compliance” with the Georgia Death Investigation Act betrays an implicit recognition that Defendants could not prove that at least half of Plaintiffs’ work directly related to true “legal compliance.” And that is enough to decimate their administrative-exemp- tion defense. As we’ve explained, the administrative exemption applies to a worker only if his “primary duty” directly relates to the “manage- ment or general business operations” of his employer or its cus- tomers. 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2). An employee’s primary duty is USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 19 of 21

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the “principal, main, major or most important duty that the em- ployee performs,” looking at factors including duties’ relative im- portance, the time spent on exempt tasks, and the amount of direct supervision. 29 C.F.R. § 541.700(a). Defendants emphasize that an employee will generally sat- isfy this second prong if more than half his work is exempt. 29 C.F.R. § 541.700(b). But they conspicuously don’t argue that de- termining jurisdiction comes anywhere near this threshold. To the contrary, Defendants’ brief emphasizes testimony that minimizes the amount of time Plaintiffs spent on determining jurisdiction. Plus, the testimony consistently shows that the investiga- tors’ central function was gathering evidence in death investiga- tions. Dr. Terry herself called the investigators “my eyes and ears” to “collect[] information on my behalf to help me determine cause and manner of death.” Defendants’ other witness called determin- ing the cause and manner of death the “ultimate goal for the whole case.” To be sure, the jury heard a witness testify that determining jurisdiction was one of the investigators’ primary responsibilities and another witness agree it was a “fundamental” component of the job. But without any evidence showing it took a majority share of investigators’ time—and considering evidence that negates this possibility—this testimony can’t establish that determining juris- diction was more important to the investigators’ roles than inves- tigative work. Like the investigators in Fowler, the death investigators’ core work fundamentally “focused on diligent and accurate factfinding USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 20 of 21

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according to guidelines set by their employer.” 38 F.4th at 110. So a proper understanding of the scope of “legal compliance” dictates that the administrative exemption doesn’t apply. 2. Defendants’ Attempts to Distinguish Fowler Perhaps recognizing that it’s fatal to their defense, Defend- ants try to distinguish Fowler in four ways. They emphasize that the investigators there (1) had only one client, (2) followed stand- ard operating procedures memorialized in two documents, (3) typ- ically concluded that the damage was caused by excavation or dig- ging, and (4) did not have an “awesome responsibility” like deter- mining whether FPS had statutory jurisdiction over a death. None of these arguments is persuasive. First, Defendants don’t explain why a business’s number of clients affects whether a given employee’s work is administrative. And we don’t see why it would. But in any event, FPS’s work also focused on just one principal client—Gwinnett County. The second and third counterarguments fail for similar rea- sons. As the evidence showed during the trial, FPS’s investigators had to follow written guidelines on their “green sheet” and em- ployment manual when deciding whether the office had jurisdic- tion over a death. Defendants suggest that, once the investigator reached the scene, the causes of death varied more than the causes of property damage in Fowler. But that’s a distinction without a difference. Even assuming Plaintiffs had to exercise more discre- tion than the Fowler investigators, the degree of discretion goes to the separate, third prong of the administrative exemption. See 29 USCA11 Case: 25-10673 Document: 59-1 Date Filed: 02/10/2026 Page: 21 of 21

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C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(3); Brown v. Nexus Bus. Sols., LLC, 29 F.4th 1315, 1318 (11th Cir. 2022) (analyzing third prong). And we have no need to reach that third prong because, as we’ve explained, Defendants fail on the second. Nor does the exercise of judgment somehow transform Plaintiffs from frontline, factfinding investigators to managers or back-office support staff. Finally, Defendants misstep by arguing that Plaintiffs’ juris- dictional determinations were so significant that they must be ad- ministrative. We rejected the same argument in Fowler, 38 F.4th at 114. So it can fare no better here.

IV. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s de- nial of Plaintiffs’ renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on Defendants’ administrative-exemption defense. We also vacate the district court’s judgment against Plaintiffs and remand for fur- ther proceedings consistent with this opinion. REVERSED, VACATED, and REMANDED.