Title: McGINNIS v. Keen

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Affirmed August 29, 1950.
*447 Charles R. Cater, of La Grande, argued the cause and filed a brief for appellant.
*448 Edward E. Grant, of Enterprise, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Dixon & Burleigh, of La Grande.
Before LUSK, Chief Justice, and BRAND, ROSSMAN and LATOURETTE, Justices.
AFFIRMED.
ROSSMAN, J.
This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Circuit Court which was entered in an action brought by the plaintiffs to recover wages which they claim had become due them, and a statutory penalty for the alleged failure of the defendant to have paid the wages. Our only source of information about the controversy is the amended complaint, a motion filed thereto by the defendant, the order which overruled the motion and the judgment in favor of the plaintiffs. The amount of the judgment is $402.30, costs, disbursements and an attorney's fee in the sum of $150.00. The motion reads as follows:
The assignments of error are the following:
*449 1. Undoubtedly the appellant's counsel is familiar with the rule that the disposition of motions, such as the one he submitted to the Circuit Court, is largely a matter of discretion, and not reviewable upon appeal unless an abuse of discretion is shown: Cole v. Willow River Company, 60 Or. 594, 117 P. 659, 118 P. 1030; 5 C.J.S., Appeal and Error, p. 478, § 1587; 3 Am. Jur., Appeal and Error, p. 526, § 964. We assume that the first assignment of error is intended as ancillary to the second, and not as a separate contention within itself.
Paragraphs I and II of the amended complaint allege:
Continuing, the paragraph says that from March 1, 1948, to and including April 1, 1948, the plaintiffs felled and bucked 318,530 board feet of logs and thereby earned $796.32.
According to Paragraph III, the plaintiffs, on April 1, 1948, "completed their employment with said defendant and the wages then earned became immediately due and payable." The paragraph states that although the plaintiffs endeavored to demand payment of their *450 wages, their efforts failed because the defendant had left the State. Further parts of this paragraph allege that later, when the defendant displayed an interest in meeting his obligation, he refused to pay anything more than the sum of $564.80, which the complaint concedes he paid May 7, 1948.
The following are paragraphs IV and V:
*451 The prayer follows:
Thus, according to the complaint, the plaintiffs earned in the period of March 1, 1948, to April 2, 1948, $796.32 and were paid $564.80 on May 7, 1948. If those figures are correct, a balance of $231.52 remained unpaid when the action was filed. The prayer seeks judgment for that balance, together with a statutory penalty of $796.32, being an amount equal to the wages earned in the thirty days immediately preceding the cessation of the employment.
The applicable parts of § 102-604, O.C.L.A., as amended by Oregon Laws 1947, Chapter 193, are:
Section 102-605, O.C.L.A., provides:
Section 102-606 prescribes a criminal penalty for the violation of the section just mentioned.
In arguing in behalf of his assignments of error, the defendant sets forth nine reasons, which he terms points. He states the first of them in these words:
The second of his points follows:
The defendant argues the two points concurrently.
Section 102-604, O.C.L.A., as amended in 1947, is concerned with wages and compensation that have been earned by employees whose employment ceased in the various ways mentioned in the act. A preceding paragraph of this opinion quotes its material parts. It fixes a day when payment of remuneration must be made. As a spur to the prompt payment of the wages earned by one "who is discharged or who quits his employment as in this section provided," the act provides that the "wages or compensation of such employee shall continue from the due date thereof *453 at the same rate until paid, * * *," provided the employer is financially able to pay and wilfully fails to do so. The act grants the additional recovery "as a penalty for nonpayment."
The amended act appears to be concerned with the wages earned by all employees whose severance from their work occurred in any of the ways mentioned in the act. Unless some meaning to the contrary lurks in a word which needs construction, there is nothing in the statute which evinces a purpose to discriminate against the pieceworker. So far as we know, it is as necessary for him to receive his wages promptly as it is for the worker whose wages are calculated upon a time basis.
2. The compensation of the plaintiffs, it will be recalled, was not computed upon a time basis, such as an hourly, daily or monthly scale, but upon the rate of "$2.50 per thousand board feet"; that is, upon a piece or quantity basis. According to Champion v. Hermitage Cotton Mills, 98 S.C. 418, 82 S.E. 672, which was concerned with a penalty statute, "Wages may be measured by the piece as well as by the time employed. 40 Cyc. 240." By reverting to § 102-605, O.C.L.A., quoted in a preceding paragraph, it will be seen that employees who are engaged in logging and who are paid upon "a piecework scale" are entitled to the beneftis of "the law regulating paydays." Section 102-604, as amended, is a part of "the law regulating paydays" and, hence, it appears that the legislature intended that the piecework employee who works in the woods should have the benefit of § 102-604, as amended by the 1947 act. The defendant, however, argues:
We are aware of no reason for accepting as true the proposition contained in the first sentence, and know of no need for attempting to reduce "the rate based upon a quantity basis" into one "based upon passage of time." The penalty recovery is not the amount which the employee seemingly would have earned had his employment continued, but is equal to the amount he earned in the period immediately preceding the cessation of his employment. Thus, if the penalty recovery extends over the entire permissible period of thirty days, its amount is the counterpart of the sum which the employee earned in the thirty days immediately preceding the cessation of his employment. We do not think that the legislature, in using the term "at the same rate", created any difficulty for those who are required to apply the act, nor do we think that the words just quoted indicate a purpose to exclude from the act all pieceworkers.
3. The third point follows:
It is true that the sentence of the act which prescribes the penalty includes the words which the third point quotes. Those words are followed immediately, however, *455 by these: "as in this section provided." The first sentence of the act says:
Thus, by referring, by means of the compendious phrase "such discharge", to employees who have been dismissed, and to others whose employment was "terminated by mutual agreement," the act shows that it deems termination of employment through mutual agreement as a discharge of the employee. Since that is true, the plaintiffs, by alleging "the employment of plaintiffs by the defendant had terminated by mutual agreement," brought themselves within the very word of the statute which the defendant deems controlling. There is nothing novel about speaking of an employee whose work ceased through its completion as discharged. In Barrows v. Riss & Co., 238 Mo. App. 334, 179 S.W.2d 473, the court said:
One whose employment ceased through the bankruptcy of his employer is deemed discharged: In re Public Ledger, 161 Fed.2d 762. The defendant depends much upon Missouri Pacific Railway Company v. Clement, 207 Ark. 389, 181 S.W.2d 240. However, the statute which the court applied in that case, unlike the one before us, did not employ the term "discharge" as including workers whose employment "terminated by mutual agreement."
4-6. Before considering the fourth point submitted *456 by the defendant we shall give our attention to some of the other contentions advanced by him.
The fifth point submitted is:
The other statute (as codified) which the defendant has in mind is § 102-605 and § 102-606, O.C.L.A. A previous part of this opinion states the essence of those sections of our laws. The former requires employers who pay on a piece or quantity basis in the logging and lumber industries to furnish each employee "at least once monthly, a statement of scale or quantity produced by him or them to his or their credit." As we said in our consideration of the first and second points submitted by the defendant, § 102-605 also requires employers to pay their employees in conformity with "the law regulating paydays." From the fact just stated, we observed previously that the statute which the defendant deems controlling (§ 102-605) subjects employers such as the defendant to the requirements of § 102-604, O.C.L.A., as amended by the 1947 act. It is evident that §§ 102-604, as amended, and 102-605 are companion measures. The former specifies the day when wages of a worker whose employment has been terminated must be paid, and the latter makes provision so that a special class of workers, like the plaintiffs, will receive data showing how much they earned. We take note once more of the fact that after § 102-605 has made provision for the delivery of the statement showing earnings, it says that the employee shall be paid as required by amended § 102-604. The fact that § 102-606 prescribes a criminal penalty does *457 not, in our opinion, deny to a worker the civil penalty feature of § 102-604. The civil penalty is unavailable to coerce a laggard employer into furnishing to a logger or mill worker a statement showing the amount earned; hence, the need for the criminal penalty. Although the parties present no contention upon the subject, yet we believe that the criminal penalty prescribed in § 102-606, O.C.L.A., is not applicable to an employer who, in disregard of the requirements of § 102-605, O.C.L.A., fails to pay his employees their wages. Article I, § 19, Constitution of Oregon, says:
By reverting to § 102-605, it will be observed that it renders it the duty of employers to pay "all wages or amounts so earned and due and payable under the law regulating paydays." It says nothing about fraud or absconding. It does not even employ the qualifying words "wilfully" and "financially able to pay", which are parts of the civil penalty section of amended § 102-604, O.C.L.A. We think that the part of § 102-605 which renders it the duty of an employer to comply with the law regulating paydays is not subject to the penalty prescribed in § 102-606, and that the only amercement available to spur dilatory employers to make timely payment of wages is the one exacted by § 102-604, as amended. We are satisfied that if the legislature had intended to deny the penalty provisions of amended § 102-604 to loggers and sawmill workers who work upon a piece or quantity basis, it would have written such a restriction into the statute. We do not believe that workers in the woods, such as the plaintiffs, are denied the benefit of § 102-604, O.C.L.A., as amended by Oregon Laws 1947, chapter 193.
*458 7. The defendant's sixth point is:
The part of amended § 102-604 which the defendant terms "the exception" is the following:
Obviously, the defendant's business did not consist of the handling of perishable or seasonal commodities. There was no occasion to negative the proviso.
8. The seventh point submitted by the defendant follows:
It will be recalled that this case is concerned with wages that were earned on a piece scale basis in the period of March 1 to and including April 1. Section 102-605, as we have seen, states that employers such as the defendant
Under that statutory requirement, it was the duty of the defendant to have known the amount that was due when the employment was terminated by the alleged mutual agreement.
Defendant's point 8 follows:
9. This is not a case of an assigned claim. The plaintiffs, according to the complaint, were the defendant's employees, and are suing in their own names for wages which they allege they earned under a joint contract for their services. Since they were jointly hired under a single contract, they properly joined as parties-plaintiff in a single action to recover their wages: Barr v. Woodbury, 136 Or. 647, 300 P. 497; Pitts v. Crane, 114 Or. 593, 236 P. 475; Anderson v. East Oregon Lumber Co., 106 Or. 459, 211 P. 937. There is nothing in the governing statute which indicates a purpose to withhold the penalty from workmen who perform labor under a joint contract.
The ninth of the defendant's points reads as follows:
10, 11. It must be borne in mind that our sole source *460 of information concerning the plaintiffs' status comes to us from the complaint, and that the only attack which the defendant made upon that pleading was by a motion to strike Paragraphs IV and V. A complaint is required to aver its matter in plain and concise language. It is not permitted to incorporate within itself the evidence. The production of the latter must wait until the day of the trial. According to the complaint, the "defendant employed plaintiffs to work for him as fallers and buckers * * * and agreed to pay plaintiffs for said services." Those words are appropriate to the delineation of an employer-employee relationship. They do not speak of an independent contractor status. The complaint contains many other expressions which herald an employer-employee relationship; for example, "employment agreement", "worked for defendant", "the work", "completed their work", "wages", "completion of the work", "completion of said work", "pay such wages", and "pay the wages or compensation". Further, the complaint, by expressly citing and relying upon § 102-604, O.C.L.A., as amended by Oregon Laws 1947, chapter 193, and § 102-605, O.C.L.A., makes it clear that the relationship which the plaintiffs were describing was that of employer and employee. "A party who has affirmatively averred facts sufficient to make a prima facie case is not ordinarily called on to plead matters of a purely negative nature." 41 Am. Jur., Pleading, page 350, § 84. If the defendant, after perusing the complaint, believed that it was ambiguous  and we do not think that it was  he could have moved for an order to make it definite and certain. Or, if he thought that it failed to allege an employer-employee relationship, and if he had the courage of his convictions, he could have submitted a demurrer. Having taken neither of *461 those courses, he now seeks, after trial, to present an issue which should be decided upon the evidence. We are certain that the complaint is sufficient.
The above disposes of all the defendant's points, with the exception of the fourth, which reads as follows:
We will now consider that point.
Although amended § 102-604, O.C.L.A., makes provision for a penalty to be recovered in a civil action, we are by no means certain that the statute is a penal one. However, whatever may be its nature  penal or remedial  we have felt throughout that our paramount duty was to ascertain the legislative intent: § 2-217, O.C.L.A. We encountered no ambiguities in the statute, and experienced no doubts concerning its meaning which did not disappear upon a consideration of the act itself. The latter deals with commonplace subjects  wages, termination of employment and payday. Surely a measure can be written upon those matters without affording occasion to use the rules of statutory construction. We think that § 102-604, O.C.L.A., reveals its own meaning.
The above disposes of all issues submitted by the defendant-appellant. The attacked judgment is free from error, and it is affirmed.