Request By:
Theodore Knoebber, Esq.
Attorney at Law
512 York Street
Newport, Kentucky 41071
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Martin Glazer, Assistant Attorney General
You seek an opinion of this office as to whether house mothers and house fathers in dormitories or homes operated by the Newport Alternate Residential Program and owned by the Newport Board of Education would be exempt from state minimum and overtime wages and classified as individuals employed in domestic service or individuals employed as baby sitters-live-in companions.
The state minimum wage law exempts from the definition of "employe" (KRS 337.010(2)(c)(iv): "Any individual employed in domestic service in or about a private home. The provisions of this section shall include individuals employed in domestic service in or about the home of an employer where there is more than one domestic servant regularly employed." (Emphasis supplied).
Subsection (vii) also excludes:
"Any individual employed as a baby sitter in employer's home, or live-in companion to a sick, convalescing or elderly person whose principal duties do not include housekeeping;"
You state that the buildings in which these people work are converted private homes.
We can find no case law or prior opinion which has ruled on this subject as it applies to KRS 337.010(2)(c)(iv); (vii).
In construing statutes, we do have the help of KRS Chapter 446 "Construction of Statutes".
KRS 446.080(4) provides:
"All words and phrases shall be construed according to the common and approved usage of language, but technical words and phrases and such others as may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law, shall be construed according to such meaning."
So, in common parlance, a private home is just that, a home of the owner in which a servant works.
Obviously, the school board does not reside in these houses, and if there are more than one employed, the exemption would not apply. In any case, the persons would be included as "employes".
In short, in our opinion, the exemption of a domestic servant or baby sitter in the "private home" of the employer does not apply to your housemothers or housefathers, and they would be included in determining minimum and overtime wages.