Full-time Wal-Mart pharmacists who had their work hours and salary reduced during slow periods did not prove that they were paid on an hourly, rather than a salary basis, and that they do not fit within the "professional" exemption from overtime pay.

The Tenth Circuit decided that "the requirement that exempt employees receive at least a 'predetermined amount' as salary does not preclude an employer from making occasional prospective salary reductions before the affected period in response to business needs."

The Court ruled, "An employer's practice of prospectively changing salaries does not convert salaried employees to hourly employees entitled to overtime rates unless the purported 'salary' becomes a sham - the functional equivalent of hourly wages."

The Court found that it was not established incontrovertibly that Wal-Mart changed salaries so often that its full-time pharmacists essentially were paid an hourly wage.

Archuleta v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.