Chapter 12 established when a civil money penalty can attach and how its size is set: the two categories that can draw one, the ceilings of $1,409 and $2,515 per violation, the defined meanings of “repeated” and “willful,” and the factors the Administrator — the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor — must and may weigh in fixing an amount within those ceilings. That material is not repeated here. This chapter picks the story up at the point a determination exists and follows it to its end — what the notice must tell the employer, how the employer contests it, and what a judge and the Board can do with it afterwards.

One thing about the ceilings does belong here, because it changes how the figures should be read. Both caps are adjusted every year for inflation under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act’s cost-of-living formula (§ 578.1). The $1,409 and $2,515 in Chapter 12 are the amounts current as of this book’s sourcing, not permanently fixed sums — an employer checking exposure for a violation in a later year should expect different numbers, set by the same formula rather than by a new rulemaking.

The rest of the chapter runs in the order the process itself runs. This section and the next cover the notice that opens it; § 13.5 covers the written exception and the hearing before an Administrative Law Judge; and § 13.6 covers the appeal to the Administrative Review Board and what finally closes the matter out.