A U.S. appeals court has ruled workers in Colorado’s cannabis industry are subject to overtime pay rules and other federal labor protections even if the industry itself is federally illegal.
The case at issue deals with Robert Kenney, a former employee at Helix TCS, a company that provides security and other services to cannabis companies in Colorado. In 2017, Kenney sued Helix in U.S. District Court for refusing to pay him overtime when he was regularly worked more than 40 hours a week as a security guard for Helix’s cannabis industry clients, an alleged violation of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act.
Helix’s attorneys moved to dismiss the case on the grounds that a federal court had no jurisdiction to hear the case “because Colorado’s recreational cannabis industry is in violation of the Controlled Substances Act,” per case documents. The district court rejected that motion but a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit was tapped to review that denial.
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