Some judges quote great philosophers such as Aristotle when they want to make a point. Others quote literary giants such as Shakespeare. And then there are those who quote the character Ricky Bobby from the 2006 movie “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.”

Intrigued? Well, it all began with a tiff between judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a December 2020 decision, Hewitt v. Helix Energy Solutions Group, 2020 WL 7488207. The case involved the question of whether a “tool pusher” (a job in the oil and gas industry that involves supervision of the roughnecks working on the rigs) was entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Without boring you with the details, the Fifth Circuit’s majority ruled (joining two other federal circuits to do so) that the “tool pusher’s” pay structure did not exempt him from the overtime pay required under the FLSA. The majority opinion was written by Judge James Ho, and it prompted an impassioned dissent from Judge Jacques Wiener, who warned of the potential “devastating effects on all employers, especially in the oil and gas arena.”