Gilchrist v. Schlumberger

Case: 22-50257 Document: 85-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 07/14/2025

United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

____________ United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

No. 22-50257 July 14, 2025

____________

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

John Gilchrist; Byron Brockman,

Plaintiffs—Appellees,

versus

Schlumberger Technology Corporation,

Defendant—Appellant.

______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

USDC No. 1:16-CV-8

______________________________

Before Jones, Richman, and Ho, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:

John Gilchrist and Byron Brockman sued their former employer,

Schlumberger Technology Corp., for failure to pay them overtime in

violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). We hold that Gilchrist

and Brockman qualify as highly compensated employees exempt from the

Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA’s) overtime pay requirement because

they performed administrative duties. See 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1); 29 C.F.R.

§ 541.601(a). We therefore REVERSE and REMAND the judgment with

instructions to dismiss.

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I. Background

Schlumberger Technology Corp. (Schlumberger) provides oilfield

services to clients engaged in the exploration and development of oil and

natural gas. Its clients “are oil exploration and development companies who

operate oil rigs and well sites and their general business is the drilling of

wells.” Gilchrist and Brockman worked for Schlumberger as Measurements

While Drilling Field Specialists (MWDs). MWDs give Schlumberger

clients “‘downhole’ information such as drilling trajectory, pressure, and

temperature,” which the clients use “to determine how to continue drilling

and how to best produce hydrocarbons.”

MWDs are essential because the data they provide ensures that the

directional driller steers the well on the correct path. The potential negative

consequences of a mistake by a MWD include loss of productive time,

drilling outside the lease, or even a well collision, which could lead to an

explosion. If an issue regarding the data or directionality arises, the MWD

is “[g]enerally” the first person to identify that issue by calling attention to

something in the data log that looks unusual. Thus, the MWD is “providing

the client and the directional driller with real-time information without a

second layer of review . . . [m]ost of the time” and is “responsible for making

real-time decisions that are critical to the drilling operations.” However, the

MWD rarely interacts with the client directly; Gilchrist testified that he

“didn’t have much involvement with the company man on location, if at all,”

the company man being the client’s representative on the rig.

When Gilchrist and Brockman worked for Schlumberger, they

commenced work at a well site by “rigging up” their equipment, including

the computers in their trailer and the cables connecting the computers to the

oil rig used to drill wells. After rigging up, Gilchrist and Brockman generally

stayed in their trailer and monitored the data that came from the tools hooked

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up to the rig. Though the MWDs rigged up their equipment, the driller and

rig crew (non-Schlumberger employees) actually controlled the movement of

the MWD tools as part of operating the rig.

The collected data are decoded with computer software, which

determines whether the data fall within the “field acceptance criteria” and

displays the corresponding data as green or red accordingly. If the survey

came in as green, the MWD “would accept it and . . . share that information

with the directional driller,” who would determine “based off of the well plan

on his own computer whether or not he needed to make adjustments to the

well itself.” If the data came in red, the MWD alerted the directional driller

and then ran the survey again. Rerunning the survey required contacting the

driller on the rig floor and instructing him to repeat the survey process

because the driller “operat[ed] all the controls himself.”

Gilchrist and Brockman took between fifteen and fifty surveys per

hour for each of their twelve-hour shifts, and they would also continuously

monitor gamma logs and other rig data during that time. Brockman testified

that he performed quality control of the surveys “by double-checking the

information from the tools against the well plan and expected inclination and

azimuth of the client . . . as the client was drilling.” He explained that this

quality control entailed double-checking that the data “makes the qualifiers,

make sure it turns green” and also that the drill string remains “still.”

At the end of the job but before sending final surveys to the client, the

MWD and the directional driller would conduct “kind of like a QC [quality

check]” wherein the MWD would “run [their data] through an Excel file,

make sure all the numbers match” for various data points. The MWD would

then “gather up all the logs and make sure the well name, everything is in

place, then [he] sent it off for QC” at Schlumberger’s office. However, “[i]n

most cases” the lead MWD—which was Brockman’s role—was responsible

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for ensuring that those reports were complete and accurate before they were

sent off for additional quality control. That process involved “remov[ing]”

any “erroneous data point[s]” from the data before transmission. In essence,

it was the MWDs’ “responsibility” to “pass along quality data.” After the

office approved the data, the MWDs themselves sent the data to the client.

Then, once the well “reached it’s [sic] total depth,” the MWDs “rig[ged]

down,” running a final survey and packing up their tools.

The year after their tenures at Schlumberger ended, Gilchrist and

Brockman sued the company, arguing that they were not exempt from the

FLSA provisions requiring overtime pay. Both men earned well over

$200,000 annually, but neither former employee was paid any overtime

while employed as an MWD. After a bench trial but before the district court

rendered its decision, the identity of two potentially relevant witnesses whom

Schlumberger had failed to identify came out in a related case, and Gilchrist

and Brockman moved to reopen the evidence. This court ultimately

determined that the witnesses’ testimony was privileged, and the district

court denied plaintiffs’ motion. In re Schlumberger Tech. Corp., 818 F. App’x

at 307-08. The district court then determined that Schlumberger failed to

prove that Gilchrist and Brockman were exempt under the various FLSA

exemptions urged at trial, including, as relevant to this appeal, the Highly

Compensated Employee (HCE) exemption. Schlumberger timely appealed

the district court’s decision awarding Gilchrist and Brockman overtime pay.

II. Discussion

The FLSA’s overtime provision “requires an employer to

compensate any covered employee who works in excess of 40 hours in a

workweek ‘at a rate not less than one and one-half times the [employee’s]

regular rate.’” Dewan v. M-I, L.L.C., 858 F.3d 331, 333-34 (5th Cir. 2017)

(quoting 29 U.S.C. § 207(a)(1)). In this case, the employer asserts that the

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plaintiffs were exempt from FLSA’s overtime requirements. “With respect

to the underlying facts, the employer has the burden of establishing that an

exemption applies by a preponderance of the evidence.” Fraser v. Patrick

O’Connor & Assocs., L.P., 954 F.3d 742, 745 (5th Cir. 2020) (citing Meza v.

Intelligent Mexican Mktg., Inc., 720 F.3d 577, 581 (5th Cir. 2013)). “Whether

an employee is within an exemption is a question of law, but how an employee

spends his working time” and “[i]nferences about the nature of an

employee’s work” are all treated as questions of fact. Smith v. Ochsner Health

Sys., 956 F.3d 681, 684 (5th Cir. 2020). We review the district court’s

findings after a bench trial for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo.

Hobbs v. EVO Inc., 7 F.4th 241, 247 (5th Cir. 2021).

On appeal, Schlumberger urges only the application of the HCE

exemption, which constitutes a subset of the broader statutory exemption for

those working “in a bona fide executive, administrative or professional

capacity.” 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(1). The HCE exemption provides:

An employee is exempt under the highly compensated category

if he or she (1) is annually compensated at least [the amount

specified in the regulation]; (2) ‘customarily and regularly

performs any one or more of the exempt duties or

responsibilities of an executive, administrative[,] or

professional employee’; and (3) has within his or her primary

duties the performing of office or non-manual work. Smith, 956

F.3d at 684 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.601(a); § 541.601(d)).

The parties agree that Gilchrist and Brockman were annually

compensated more than the amount required by the regulation, which was at

least $100,000 during their employment by Schlumberger, and they

performed primarily non-manual work. See 29 C.F.R. § 541.601 (2014); 29

C.F.R. § 541.601 (2015). The only outstanding element on appeal is whether

they customarily and regularly performed any of the exempt duties of an

administrative or executive employee.

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Under the standalone administrative exemption, highlighted by

Schlumberger, employees cannot qualify as bona fide administrators unless

(1) their “‘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,’ and [(2)] the ‘primary duty includes

the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters

of significance.’” Smith, 956 F.3d at 684 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)).

But under the HCE exemption, “higher-income employees need ‘regularly

perform[]’ only ‘one’ of those [administrative or executive]

‘responsibilities’ to so qualify.” Helix Energy Sols. Grp., Inc. v. Hewitt, 598

U.S. 39, 58, 143 S. Ct. 677, 690 (2023) (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.601(a)).

This “more flexible duties standard” thus “eases the way to executive

status, and so to exemption from the FLSA.” Id. (quoting 69 Fed. Reg.

22174 (Apr. 23, 2004)). Although the HCE exemption and the standalone

exemptions “are distinguishable in key respects, we draw from our

standalone-exemption precedents where the exemptions overlap.” Smith,

956 F.3d at 686.

Further pertinent to the HCE exemption is that an employee

performs a task “customarily and regularly” if the frequency of that

performance is “greater than occasional,” though it need not be constant.

Id. at 688 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.701). “[W]ork normally and recurrently

performed every workweek” qualifies, while “isolated or one-time tasks” do

not. Id. “The applicable regulation states that the ‘high level of

compensation’ that the HCE exemption requires is itself ‘a strong indicator

of an employee’s exempt status, thus eliminating the need for a detailed

analysis of the employee’s job duties.’” Id. at 684 (quoting 29 C.F.R.

§ 541.601(c)).

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In Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro, 584 U.S. 79, 138 S. Ct. 1134

(2018), “[t]he Supreme Court . . . clarified that courts are to give FLSA

exemptions ‘a fair reading,’ as opposed to the narrow interpretation

previously espoused by this and other circuits.” Carley v. Crest Pumping

Techs., L.L.C., 890 F.3d 575, 579 (5th Cir. 2018) (quoting Encino, 584 U.S. at

89, 138 S. Ct. at 1142); see also Hobbs, 7 F.4th at 248 (“We give FLSA

exceptions a ‘fair reading’ [citing Encino Motorcars], not a narrow one”).

Schlumberger argues that the pre-Encino cases in our circuit are therefore not

relevant. But certain post-Encino cases have relied on pre-Encino precedent, 1

and this court has explicitly stated that the value of those cases “remain[s]

unaffected” by Encino. 2

Schlumberger asserts that the district court erred in three ways. First,

the court clearly erred in finding that Gilchrist and Brockman “did not

perform any work directly related to the general business operations of

[Schlumberger] or its customers” and thus did not perform any

administrative duties. Second, it erred in finding that Gilchrist and

Brockman did not customarily and regularly perform at least one of six other

_____________________

1

See Hobbs v. EVO Inc., 7 F.4th 241, 254-55, 254 n.50 (5th Cir. 2021) (citing Dewan

v. M-I, L.L.C., 858 F.3d 331, 337-38 (5th Cir. 2017)) (stating that, despite Dewan’s

preceding Encino, “Dewan’s discussion of the elements of the administrative exemption

remains good law and is instructive here where the jobs performed by both sets of plaintiffs

share certain similarities”); see also White v. U.S. Corr., L.L.C., 996 F.3d 302, 307-08 (5th

Cir. 2021) (first citing Olibas v. Barclay, 838 F.3d 442, 448 (5th Cir. 2016); and then citing

Songer v. Dillon Res., Inc., 618 F.3d 467, 472 (5th Cir. 2010), abrogated in part by Encino, 584

U.S. at 89, 138 S. Ct. at 1142).

2

Kelley v. Alpine Site Servs., Inc., 110 F.4th 812, 816 & n.1 (5th Cir. 2024) (citing

Songer, 618 F.3d at 475-76, and stating that “the central analyses of the[] . . . decisions

[abrogated by Encino] remain unaffected because they concern the interpretation and

application of FLSA-implementing regulations, not the statute itself” (quoting Amaya v.

NOYPI Movers, L.L.C., 741 F. App’x 203, 205 n.2 (5th Cir. 2018) (per curiam)

(unpublished))).

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management tasks relevant to executive duties. Finally, the employer argues

that the district court mistakenly used the independent judgment and

discretion requirement from the standalone administrative exemption in

analyzing and applying the HCE exemption.

A. The HCE Exemption

We first consider whether the district court erred in finding that

Gilchrist and Brockman “did not perform any work directly related to the

general business operations of [Schlumberger] or its customers” and thus did

not perform any administrative duties.

To qualify for the HCE exemption based on administrative duties, the

MWDs “must have performed ‘any one or more of the exempt duties or

responsibilities of an . . . administrative . . . employee.’” Smith, 956 F.3d at

685 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.601(c)). “Section 541.200 lays out two types

of exempt duties,” which are “‘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,’ and duties involving ‘the

exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of

significance.’” Id. (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.200(a)(2)-(3)).

“[T]he regulations define work ‘directly related to [the] management

or general business operations’ as a type of work in which the employee

‘perform[s] work directly related to assisting with the running or servicing of

the business.’” Id. at 685 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.201(a)). The regulations

then draw a contrast between work “assisting with the running or servicing

of the business” and “production-focused work.” Id. at 686. Examples of

production-focused work include “working on a manufacturing production

line or selling a product in a retail or service establishment.” 29 C.F.R.

§ 541.201(a). In distinguishing between production work and management

work, “the relevant distinction ‘is between those employees whose primary

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duty is administering the business affairs of the enterprise [and] those whose

primary duty is producing the commodity or commodities, whether goods or

services, that the enterprise exists to produce and market.’” Dewan, 858

F.3d at 336 (quoting Dalheim v. KDFW-TV, 918 F.2d 1220, 1230 (5th Cir.

1990)). Schlumberger contends that the MWDs performed two separate

administrative duties: (1) quality control and (2) advising and consulting with

Schlumberger’s clients regarding drilling operations.

1. Quality Control Duties

“Work directly related to management or general business operations

includes, but is not limited to, work in functional areas such as . . . quality

control . . . .” Smith, 956 F.3d at 686 (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.201(b))

(emphasis omitted). We hold that the district court erred in finding that the

MWDs did not perform the administrative duty of quality control.

The district court explained that “[t]here is a distinction between

quality-control work related to ‘production’ and quality-control work related

to ‘administration’” such that “[i]f a quality-control duty is ‘functional, not

conceptional’ [sic] and ‘relate[s] more closely to [] production . . . than to

business administration,’ the FLSA exemption cannot apply.” The district

court then determined that Gilchrist’s and Brockman’s “duties of reviewing

surveys and monitoring logs are ‘functional, not conceptual’ because they

largely relate to whether the directional driller can safely continue drilling

along the well path.” The district court analogized to this court’s decision

in Hobbs and to the inspection example in 29 C.F.R. § 541.203(g) to support

its conclusion. 7 F.4th at 241. Neither analogy is persuasive.

In Hobbs, the plaintiff-employees did not perform duties directly

related to management or general business operations because dropping a

coin in a bottle to test water quality did not constitute quality control. 7 F.4th

at 253, 255. The employees were field engineers whose employer supplied

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“downhole video camera services to clients in the oil and gas industry” for

the purpose of “identify[ing] and diagnos[ing] issues that interrupt a well’s

productivity.” Id. at 245. At the start of a job, the field engineers would test

well water by dropping a coin in a bottle of the water to assess the probable

quality of the images to be obtained. Id. Hobbs described these tests as

“rudimentary fluid-quality assessments” that constituted “functional, not

conceptual, work, and the quality concerns [their work] addresse[d] relate[d]

more closely to the production of images than to business administration.”

Id. at 255. Because such production-related work did not “directly relate to

assisting with the running of the company,” we held it was not directly

related to management or general business operations. Id. at 253, 255.

Comparing the MWD function to dropping a coin in a bottle of water

oversimplifies the MWDs’ work. Brockman agreed on cross-examination

that he performed quality control of the surveys “by double-checking the

information from the tools against the well plan and expected inclination and

azimuth of the client . . . as the client was drilling.” He clarified on redirect

examination that this entailed double-checking that the data “makes the

qualifiers, make sure it turns green” and also that the drill string remains

“still.” But Brockman’s and Gilchrist’s other testimony shows that their

assessment went beyond merely noting the color of the data and the

movement of the drill string.

Before sending final surveys to the client, the MWD and the

directional driller would conduct “kind of like a QC [quality check]” wherein

the MWD would “run [their data] through an Excel file, make sure all the

numbers match” for various data points. The MWD would then “gather up

all the logs and make sure the well name, everything is in place, then [he] sent

it off for QC.” The MWDs would also collect gamma ray data and generate

logs of those data with every survey, which they would then send out. The

data were supposed to be accurate, so that process involved “remov[ing]”

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any “erroneous data point[s]” from the data before transmitting the report.

In essence, it was their “responsibility” to “pass along quality data.”

Additionally, even though the directional driller and a manager or the remote

operations center would also review any data, “[i]n most cases” it was the

“expectation” that Brockman as lead MWD would ensure that the various

drilling reports “were completed and completed accurately” “before [the

directional driller] looked at [them].”

The wealth and variety of data that the MWDs were collecting and

reviewing went far beyond the rudimentary test conducted in Hobbs. The

district court, however, largely overlooked the MWDs’ work with the data

logs. It merely mentioned that Gilchrist and Brockman “monitored a

continuous information log that displayed downhole data on pressure,

temperature, vibrations, radioactive activity, and other parameters,” and at

the end of a job, they “gathered” the information, “sent various reports to

the Operations Support Center for final review, and then compiled the

information for a final end-of-well information packet for Schlumberger’s

client.” The district court did not acknowledge the MWDs’ role in quality

checking the data before sending it to the client, but that task easily fits into

this court’s past understanding of quality control.

Apart from rejecting a quality control argument in Hobbs, this court

has not elaborated extensively on what quality control entails beyond

observing that it appears in a list referencing other functional areas like “‘tax;

finance; accounting; budgeting; auditing; insurance; . . . purchasing;

procurement;’ and others.’” Dewan, 858 F.3d at 337 (quoting 29 C.F.R.

§ 541.201(b)). Considering those listed areas, the court in Dewan surmised

that as to mud engineers in the oil field, “‘quality control’ . . . seem[ed] to

mean the quality of the mud being provided to [the defendant-employer’s]

customers” rather than “monitoring and adding materials to the mud as it is

being used in drilling wells to ensure that its properties stay within the

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specifications set forth in the mud plan developed by project engineers.” Id.

Here, Gilchrist testified, in agreement with Schlumberger’s Product and

Media Delivery Standards, that data output is the “product that [the MWD]

would be providing to [the client].” Just as quality control for mud engineers

according to Dewan would mean controlling the quality of the mud provided

to customers, quality control here means controlling the quality of the data

provided to clients. Gilchrist’s and Brockman’s testimony shows that they

did just that.

The district court also relied on an example in the regulations for its

quality control conclusion. The district court compared the MWDs’ “tasks

of reviewing and monitoring surveys and logs” to “inspection work using

‘well-established techniques and procedures’ and ‘techniques and skills

acquired by special training or experience.’” 29 C.F.R. § 541.203(g).

Because that example in the regulations does not qualify as an administrative

duty, the district court reasoned, the MWDs’ inspection work could not

qualify.

The court’s comparison was improper. As the district court noted,

the standalone administrative exemption sets a “higher bar” than the HCE

exemption, and this court recognizes it as a “more ambitious theory” for

exemption from the FLSA overtime pay requirement. Hobbs, 7 F.4th at 256.

This increased difficulty is due to both the conjunctive nature of the

administrative exemption test and the requirement that an employer prove

that the task at issue was the employee’s “primary duty,” and not merely

something the employee did “customarily and regularly.” Hobbs, 7 F.4th at

256; Smith, 956 F.3d at 685 (“While the elements [of the exemptions] are

conjunctive in the standalone exemptions, they are disjunctive when paired

with a high salary.”).

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The examples in § 541.203(g) are geared to this higher bar because

they illustrate the standalone administrative exemption. Albeit in an

unpublished, nonprecedential decision, this court acknowledged the

discrepancy between the standards for these administrative examples and the

standards for the HCE exemption. Zannikos v. Oil Inspections (U.S.A.), Inc.,

605 F. App’x 349 (5th Cir. 2015) (per curiam). There, we held that oil

inspectors’ duties did not satisfy the administrative exemption by reference

to § 541.203(g)’s examples, they did satisfy the HCE exemption because the

employees “primarily performed non-manual work related to the general or

business operations” of their employer’s customers. Id. at 360. The fact that

the MWDs’ duties did not rise to the level of an example in § 541.203(g)

does not necessarily foreclose the HCE exemption. Neither the analogy to

Hobbs nor the inspection work example provides a basis for refuting

Schlumberger’s evidence that the MWDs performed quality control duties.

Additionally, the MWDs “customarily and regularly” performed

quality control functions because they constantly monitored the well data

throughout their twelve-hour shifts, quality checked the survey data for each

of the fifteen to fifty surveys that they took every hour, and reviewed and

edited data at the end of every job. This consistency establishes that the

MWDs performed these tasks “normally and recurrently . . . every

workweek,” a frequency that is certainly “greater than occasional,” as

required by the regulations. 29 C.F.R. § 541.701.

In summary, the district court overlooked the MWDs’ role in quality

checking data logs and improperly relied on Hobbs and the inspection

example in regulation § 541.203(g). Accordingly, the district court erred in

determining that the MWDs did not perform the administrative duty of

quality control.

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2. Advisory and Consulting Duties

“‘[E]mployees acting as advisers or consultants to their employer’s

clients or customers’ qualify for the administrative exempt standard”

because they perform “work directly related to the management or general

business operations of the employer’s customers.” Venable v. Smith Int’l,

Inc., 117 F.4th 295, 301 (5th Cir. 2024) (quoting 29 C.F.R. § 541.201).

Following Venable, we hold, contrary to the district court, that the MWDs

acted as advisers to Schlumberger’s clients.

In Venable, the plaintiff-employees’ work was deemed “directly

relate[d] to the general business operations of [their employer’s] customers”

because they advised their employers’ clients by “supervising the use of

drilling tools” and “assisting . . . [in] the appropriate method of conducting

drilling operations.” Id. at 301. The employees were DTR Field Specialists,

also known as “reamers” who supervised oil exploration companies’ use of

their employer’s underreaming tool on offshore drilling rigs. Id. at 298. As

part of their job responsibilities, the reamers would supervise the drilling rig

crew in attaching and removing the reamer tool to and from the drill string,

monitor and oversee the reaming process, and offer advice and suggestions

to the driller regarding how to operate the tool. Id. Notably, the reamers did

not operate the tool themselves; rather, the drillers from the client’s

company operated the tool under the reamers’ supervision. Id. Moreover,

because supervising the drillers’ use of the underreaming tool was the

reamers’ “primary job,” they performed the task “regularly and

customarily.” Id. at 301. These responsibilities led the court to characterize

the reamers as “advisers” to the clients and “liaisons” between the clients’

drillers and the reamers’ employer. Id.

At the time of its decision, the district court did not have the benefit

of Venable and instead relied principally on Dewan for its analysis of this duty.

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858 F.3d 331 (5th Cir. 2017). The district court stated, “[i]n determining

whether an employee fits the regulation’s concept of an advisor or

consultant, courts evaluate whether the employee’s activities relate to

‘management policies,’ ‘general business operations,’ and ‘policy

determinations [for] how a business should be run.’” The court then

determined that the MWDs’ “duty to monitor surveys and logs related to

the drilling process, which in turn related to the client’s success in extracting

hydrocarbons” but “did not directly relate to the client’s management

policies, general business operations, or policy determinations.” While it is

hardly controversial that the MWDs’ tasks “related to the client’s success

in extracting hydrocarbons,” we cannot, in light of Venable, accept the

further legal conclusion that this duty to monitor “did not directly relate to

the client’s management policies, general business operations, or policy

determinations.”

In Dewan, this court held that an oilfield service company was not

entitled to summary judgment on the administrative exemption from

overtime pay for its mud engineers. The court relied in part on the

dissimilarity between the mud engineers’ role and two examples of advisers

provided in the regulations: tax experts and financial consultants. 858 F.3d

at 332, 337–38. Dewan, however, preceded Encino’s directive to give the

FLSA exemptions a “fair reading” rather than a narrow construction.

Encino, 584 U.S. at 89, 138 S. Ct. at 1142; see Dewan, 858 F.3d at 334 (applying

“narrow construction”). Post-Encino, Venable correctly expanded our

understanding of what constitutes an adviser or consultant. We must rely on

Venable’s interpretation in our analysis.

The MWDs’ work resembles the tasks described in Venable because

the MWDs advised Schlumberger’s clients by providing them with essential

information during the drilling process. On the one hand, the MWDs appear

to have given the client very little direct guidance: Gilchrist, for example,

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testified that he “didn’t have much involvement with the company man on

location, if at all.” But more importantly, just as the reamers in Venable

advised the client’s crew about how to operate the reaming tool, the MWDs’

data crucially informed the client’s precise drilling of the well. Their data

ensured that the directional driller kept the well on its predetermined path,

as mistakes by the MWD could lead to loss of productive time, drilling

outside the lease, or even a well collision and potentially a catastrophic

explosion. Brockman himself agreed that the MWD is “responsible for

making real-time decisions that are critical to the drilling operations.”

The MWDs’ guidance to the rig crew in operating the MWD tool

also resembles the advice in Venable. The reamers in Venable did not operate

the reaming tool themselves and instead directed the client’s crew in its

operation. Here, the district court determined that “any ‘supervision’ of the

rig crew was limited to giving the occasional direction or hand signal while

the crew lowered the measurement tools into the well.” But the rig crew

controlled the movement of the MWD tools, and any re-running of a survey

required asking the driller to repeat the survey process because he

“operat[ed] all the controls himself.” Although that was not enough to

satisfy the district court’s conception of “supervision,” the MWDs’ activity

in directing the drilling crew when conducting a survey closely resembles the

more remote positioning of the Venable reamers.

We conclude that MWDs fit comfortably in the adviser category

alongside reamers on offshore drilling rigs. Venable, 117 F.4th at 300–01; see

also Dewan, 858 F.3d at 337. Consequently, the MWDs acted as advisers to

Schlumberger’s clients and performed “work directly related to the

management or general business operations of [their] employer’s

customers.” See 29 C.F.R. § 541.201(c).

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Moreover, the MWDs performed this duty “customarily and

regularly.” 29 C.F.R. § 541.201(a). The bulk of a MWD’s working time is

spent monitoring data from the well with the directional driller. The MWD

takes between fifteen and fifty surveys an hour in a twelve-hour shift and also

constantly monitors gamma logs and other data from the rig. “Most of the

time” he “provid[es] the client and the directional driller with real-time

information without a second layer of review,” and he is “[g]enerally” the

first person to identify any concerns about the data or directionality of the

well. That frequency more than satisfies the standard set out in the

regulations of tasks performed “normally and recurrently . . . every

workweek.” Smith, 956 F.3d at 688.

Because Schlumberger proved that the MWDs customarily and

regularly performed work directly related to the management or general

business operations of their customers, a qualifying exempt duty of an

administrative employee, Schlumberger satisfies the duty requirement of the

HCE exemption. As stated above, the parties do not dispute that the

MWDs’ compensation was high enough to qualify for the exemption or that

they primarily performed non-manual work. Therefore, the MWDs fall

within the HCE exemption from the FLSA’s overtime payment

requirement, and it was error for the district court to determine otherwise.

B. Executive Duties & Independent Judgment

Schlumberger also contends that that the district court erred in

determining that Gilchrist and Brockman did not customarily and regularly

perform at least one of six other management tasks and thus did not perform

any executive duties. Because the HCE exemption requires only that an

employee perform either one administrative duty or one executive duty, and

we have already determined that the MWDs performed administrative

duties, we do not reach the executive duties analysis.

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No. 22-50257

Similarly, we need not address the argument that the district court

erred by considering the “discretion and independent judgment” prong

conjunctively rather than disjunctively in its HCE duties analysis. See 29

C.F.R. § 541.202(e). The district court erroneously considered the MWDs’

use of discretion and independent judgement as an adjunct requirement to

other administrative duties, even though it expressly acknowledged that the

standalone administrative exemption sets a “higher bar.” But as we noted in

Smith, “[w]hile the elements [of the executive and administrative

exemptions] are conjunctive in the standalone exemptions, they are

disjunctive when paired with a high salary.” 956 F.3d at 685.

III. Conclusion

For these reasons, Gilchrist and Brockman qualify as highly

compensated employees and are exempt from the FLSA’s overtime pay

requirement. We therefore REVERSE the judgment of the district court

and REMAND with instructions to dismiss.

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