Title: Parker v. EnerNOC, Inc.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12703
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: February 12, 2020

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SJC-12703 
 
FRANCOISE PARKER  vs.  ENERNOC, INC., & others.1 
 
 
 
Suffolk.     October 1, 2019. - February 12, 2020. 
 
Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Gaziano, Lowy, Budd, Cypher, & 
Kafker, JJ. 
 
 
Massachusetts Wage Act.  Labor, Wages, Damages.  Employment, 
Termination, Retaliation. 
 
 
 
 
Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on 
August 19, 2016. 
 
 
The case was tried before Kenneth W. Salinger, J., and 
posttrial motions were considered by him. 
 
 
The Supreme Judicial Court granted an application for 
direct appellate review. 
 
 
 
Robert R. Berluti for the plaintiff. 
 
Donald W. Schroeder (Erin C. Horton also present) for the 
defendants. 
 
Maura Healey, Attorney General, & Karla E. Zarbo, Assistant 
Attorney General, for the Attorney General, amicus curiae, 
submitted a brief. 
 
David A. Russcol & Audrey R. Richardson, for Massachusetts 
Employment Lawyers Association & others, amici curiae, submitted 
a brief. 
 
                     
 
1 Eric Erston and Timothy Healy. 
2 
 
 
 
 
BUDD, J.  The plaintiff, Francoise Parker, a former 
employee of EnerNOC, Inc., was awarded damages after a jury 
found that the defendants violated G. L. c. 149, §§ 148, 148A & 
150 (Wage Act or act), both by failing to pay the plaintiff the 
full amount of a commission that she had earned and by 
terminating the plaintiff when she complained about it, causing 
her to lose an additional commission.  Before us are the 
parties' cross appeals.  The defendants argue that aspects of 
the jury's verdict were not supported by the evidence.  The 
plaintiff, although satisfied with the jury's work, takes issue 
with the trial judge's final judgment, asserting that the judge 
erred in his determination of the portion of the award subject 
to trebling under the act.  See G. L. c. 149, § 150. 
We conclude that the jury's verdict was supported by the 
evidence.  We further conclude that the full amount of the 
commission that would have been due to the plaintiff had she not 
been terminated is a "lost wage" that must be trebled under the 
Wage Act.  We therefore vacate portions of the judgment and 
remand the matter to the Superior Court.2 
                     
 
2 We acknowledge the amicus brief submitted by the Attorney 
General, as well as the amicus brief submitted by Massachusetts 
Employment Lawyers Association, Immigrant Worker Center 
Collaborative, Lawyers for Civil Rights, and Fair Employment 
Project, Inc. 
3 
 
 
 
Background and procedural posture.  We summarize the facts 
as the jury could have found them, reserving certain details for 
discussion.  EnerNOC is an energy-related services provider that 
helps businesses improve their energy efficiency.  The plaintiff 
marketed EnerNOC's services to prospective clients.  She earned 
an annual base salary in addition to commissions on the sales 
she made. 
 
On March 4, 2016, EnerNOC entered into a deal with Eaton 
Industries, negotiated by the plaintiff, worth $20 million over 
five years -- the largest contract in EnerNOC's history.  The 
contract included a so-called "termination for convenience" 
clause under which both parties had a one-time option to 
terminate the contract within the thirty days following the 
first anniversary of the effective date of the contract. 
 
Under EnerNOC's sales commission policy, a commission 
payment on a contract that contained such a termination clause 
would be paid on the guaranteed portion of the contract, i.e., 
the first full year of the contract.  In addition, pursuant to 
what was known as EnerNOC's "true-up" policy, an additional 
commission payment would be made based on the entire value of 
the contract as long as the contract survived past the opt-out 
date.  Under the sales commission policy, a salesperson's 
eligibility for "any further [c]ommissions" would cease upon the 
date of termination of employment "for any reason." 
4 
 
 
 
On April 1, 2016, EnerNOC fired the plaintiff after she 
complained about not receiving her full commission on the 
guaranteed portion of the Eaton contract.3  On April 22, 2016, 
EnerNOC paid the plaintiff $100,222.21 as commission on the 
guaranteed portion of the contract. 
On August 19, 2016, the plaintiff filed a complaint in the 
Superior Court against EnerNOC and two of its officers, Eric 
Erston and Timothy Healy, alleging gender discrimination, Wage 
Act violations, breach of contract, and breach of the covenant 
of good faith and fair dealing.  Among other things, the 
plaintiff alleged that she was owed a greater commission on the 
Eaton contract for the guaranteed period (i.e., the first year 
of the contract) and a separate commission under EnerNOC's true-
up policy.  Approximately one year later, after the opt-out 
period had expired without Eaton terminating the contract,4 the 
                     
 
3 Shortly before she was fired, the plaintiff complained to 
her supervisors about the planned application of a new "pushed 
deal" policy under which deals that had been expected to close 
in 2015 but did not close until 2016, such as the Eaton 
contract, would not count toward the plaintiff's sales quota for 
2016.  Because EnerNOC paid higher commissions once a 
salesperson reached their annual quota, the new policy would 
have significantly reduced the plaintiff's commission on the 
guaranteed portion of the Eaton contract and her subsequent 
commissions for EnerNOC's 2016 fiscal year. 
 
 
4 The opt-out period expired in April 2017. 
5 
 
 
plaintiff amended her complaint to add a claim for quantum 
meruit. 
In May 2018, the jury returned a verdict against EnerNOC 
and Erston,5 finding liability against EnerNOC for breach of 
contract and for breach of the implied covenant of good faith 
and fair dealing, and against both defendants for Wage Act 
violations, including retaliation by terminating the plaintiff.6  
In finding for the plaintiff, the jury specifically found that a 
contract existed between the plaintiff and the defendants and 
that the defendants had a contractual obligation to pay 
commissions under the true-up policy.  The jury awarded the 
plaintiff $25,063.34 as the difference between what she was owed 
and what she was paid on the guaranteed portion of the contract, 
and awarded $349,098.48 as the amount owed under the true-up 
policy.7  In addition, for the retaliation, the jury awarded the 
                     
5 The plaintiff's claims against Healy were settled before 
the case went to the jury. 
 
6 The jury found that the defendants retaliated against the 
plaintiff for her complaints about the amount of her initial 
commission and about discrimination against her on the basis of 
sex.  See G. L. c. 151B, § 4. 
 
 
7 Although Eaton did not exercise its option to terminate 
the contract early, Eaton and EnerNOC renegotiated the contract 
during the guaranteed period, shortening the total length of the 
contract.  The jury verdict form does not expressly indicate 
whether the award of $349,098.48 for unpaid commissions due 
under the true-up policy was based on the value of the original 
or the renegotiated Eaton contract.  However, we note that the 
6 
 
 
plaintiff $40,000 for emotional distress and $240,000 in 
punitive damages. 
 
The defendants filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding 
the verdict or, in the alternative, for remittitur, which the 
judge denied.  Pursuant to G. L. c. 149, § 150, the judge 
trebled $25,063.34, the amount that had been withheld from the 
commission owed on the guaranteed portion of the Eaton contract, 
but he did not treble what would have been owed under the true-
up policy ($349,098.48). 
 
Discussion.  1.  Sufficiency of the evidence.  The 
defendants appeal from the denial of their motion for judgment 
notwithstanding the verdict, arguing that there was insufficient 
evidence that EnerNOC had an actual true-up policy, but even if 
it did, it had no obligation to make an additional commission 
payment of $349,098.48 to the plaintiff.  This argument fails. 
Although the defendants point to the fact that certain 
witnesses testified that EnerNOC did not have a true-up policy, 
multiple witnesses, including codefendant Erston, who was 
EnerNOC's then-senior vice-president for marketing and sales, 
indicated that EnerNOC did have such a policy.  The evidence 
also included internal e-mail messages referencing the policy.  
                     
jury were presented with evidence of the original and 
renegotiated contract terms, including calculations of the total 
values and commissions associated with each. 
7 
 
 
"Review of [a denial of a motion for judgment notwithstanding 
the verdict] requires us to construe the evidence in the light 
most favorable to the nonmoving party and disregard that 
favorable to the moving party."  O'Brien v. Pearson, 449 Mass. 
377, 383 (2007).  Thus, the fact that there was conflicting 
evidence on this point does not inure to the defendants' benefit 
in this analysis.  See Mass. R. Civ. P. 50 (b), as amended, 428 
Mass. 1402 (1998). 
The defendants also claim that the plaintiff did not prove 
that a true-up policy existed, given that the sales commission 
policy that she signed explicitly stated that a contract 
containing the type of termination clause at issue here would 
"only be eligible for a . . . [c]ommission for the term length 
guaranteed by the contract."  We note that, although the written 
sales commission policy stated that it "supersedes all prior 
plans and policies," there was sufficient evidence for the 
jury's finding that the defendants nonetheless had a contractual 
obligation to pay commissions under a true-up policy.  The 
plaintiff's testimony indicated that she understood the express 
terms of the sales commission policy to include a true-up 
commission in the form of a second commission when the remainder 
of the contract became a "guaranteed term" on the expiration of 
the client's opt-out period.  See Robert Indus., Inc. v. Spence, 
362 Mass. 751, 753-754 (1973) (contract's integration clause 
8 
 
 
does not bar evidence elucidating ambiguous contract term).  
Further, the record included internal EnerNOC e-mail messages 
sent after the written policy went into effect that referred to 
the continued existence of a true-up policy.  See Cambridgeport 
Sav. Bank v. Boersner, 413 Mass. 432, 439 (1992) (modification 
of fully integrated contract may be inferred from parties' 
conduct and surrounding circumstances).  See generally 
Commonwealth v. Kelly, 470 Mass. 682, 693 (2015), quoting 
Commonwealth v. Longo, 402 Mass. 482, 487 (1988) ("The 
inferences drawn by the jury from the evidence 'need only be 
reasonable and possible and need not be necessary or 
inescapable'").8  There was no error on this point. 
 
Viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the 
evidence was sufficient for the jury's finding that the 
plaintiff was entitled to a true-up commission on the Eaton 
contract. 
                     
8 The defendants also argue that the plaintiff failed to 
establish that she reasonably relied upon a true-up policy.  
This argument is misplaced.  The Wage Act does not require 
employees to prove that they relied on a specific promise of 
payment to be entitled to the timely payment of wages.  At any 
rate, there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find that 
the plaintiff relied on the true-up policy when working to close 
the Eaton deal, based on her testimony regarding her 
understanding that even under the sales commission policy she 
signed, she was entitled to a true-up commission once the Eaton 
opt-out date passed.  See Situation Mgt. Sys., Inc. v. Malouf, 
Inc., 430 Mass. 875, 878-879 (2000) (evidence of reliance and 
prior course of dealing sufficient for jury to find existence of 
contract). 
9 
 
 
2.  Damages under the Wage Act.  a.  Overview of the act.  
The purpose of the Wage Act is "to protect employees and their 
right to wages," Electronic Data Sys. Corp. v. Attorney Gen., 
454 Mass. 63, 70 (2009), by requiring employers to pay employees 
their wages "in a timely fashion, according to the parameters 
set out in the statute."  Okerman v. VA Software Corp., 69 Mass. 
App. Ct. 771, 775 (2007).  See G. L. c. 149, § 148, first par.  
As it pertains to commissions, the act states: 
"This section shall apply, so far as apt, to the payment of 
commissions when the amount of such commissions, less 
allowable or authorized deductions, has been definitely 
determined and has become due and payable to such employee, 
and commissions so determined and due such employees shall 
be subject to the provisions of [G. L. c. 149, § 150]." 
 
G. L. c. 149, § 148, fourth par.  That is, the act requires that 
commissions are to be paid when two conditions are met:  (1) the 
amount of the commission "has been definitely determined"; and 
(2) the commission "has become due and payable."  G. L. c. 149, 
§ 148, fourth par.  In contrast, other forms of wages, once 
earned, are to be paid on a regular schedule.  G. L. c. 149, 
§ 148, first par. 
To ensure that the requirements of the Wage Act are met, 
the statute prohibits employers from retaliating against 
employees who assert their rights:  "No employee shall be 
penalized by an employer in any way as a result of any action on 
the part of an employee to seek his or her rights under the 
10 
 
 
wages and hours provisions of this chapter."  G. L. c. 149, 
§ 148A.  The act also forbids "special contracts" between an 
employer and employee that purport to exempt the employer from 
the requirements of the act.  G. L. c. 149, § 148, sixth par. 
As for enforcement of the Wage Act, prior to 1993, there 
was no private right of action for employees to bring complaints 
against employers for violating the act.  See Lipsitt v. Plaud, 
466 Mass. 240, 245-246 (2013).  In 1993, the Legislature 
"'dramatically increased' the remedies available to employees" 
by authorizing a private right of action for injunctive relief 
and civil damages, including provisions for treble damages and 
attorney's fees and costs.  Id. at 246.  See St. 1993, c. 110, 
§ 182.  The enforcement mechanism of the act was further amended 
in 2008 to make treble damages mandatory for "lost wages and 
other benefits" for violations of the act:9 
"An employee . . . who prevails in . . . an action [for 
violations of the act] shall be awarded treble damages, as 
liquidated damages, for any lost wages and other benefits 
and shall also be awarded the costs of the litigation and 
reasonable attorneys' fees." 
 
G. L. c. 149, § 150, as amended by St. 2008, c. 80, § 5. 
b.  Application.  The jury found that EnerNOC violated the 
Wage Act in two ways:  (1) by failing to pay the plaintiff the 
                     
9 An employer who violates the Wage Act is also subject to 
potential civil and criminal penalties in an enforcement action 
brought by the Attorney General.  See G. L. c. 149, § 150, first 
par.; G. L. c. 149, § 27C. 
11 
 
 
additional amount that the jury found to be due to her under the 
sales commission policy as of her last day of work, and (2) by 
retaliating against her (by terminating her employment) after 
she complained that she in fact had not been paid fully under 
the sales commission policy.  As mentioned supra, for the former 
violation, the jury awarded $25,063.34; for the latter, they 
awarded $349,098.48, the amount that would have been due to the 
plaintiff under the true-up policy had she still been employed 
with EnerNOC at the time the opt-out period expired. 
The trial judge trebled only the amount owed but not paid 
to the plaintiff under the sales commission policy, i.e., 
$25,063.34, concluding that because the unpaid commission amount 
under the true-up policy was not due and payable at the time of 
the plaintiff's termination, it could not be considered a lost 
wage.  See McAleer v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 928 F. Supp. 
2d 280, 288 (D. Mass. 2013) ("Commissions are due and payable 
[under the Wage Act] when any contingencies relating to their 
entitlement have occurred" [quotation and citations omitted]).  
Given the language of the act, we are not persuaded.10  As 
                     
10 We note that the judge interpreted the Wage Act to 
require that commissions be "'due and payable' and . . . 
'definitely determined' as of plaintiff[']s last day of 
employment" (emphasis added).  However, the act is silent as to 
when a commission must satisfy the stated requirements.  See 
Commonwealth v. McLeod, 437 Mass. 286, 294 (2002), and cases 
cited ("We will not add words to a statute that the Legislature 
12 
 
 
explained infra, although the plaintiff's commission never 
became due and payable pursuant to the true-up policy during her 
employment, it is, nevertheless, a "lost wage" under the act 
subject to trebling. 
We begin by noting that we have said that the term "wages," 
for purposes of the Wage Act, "encompasses 'commissions when the 
amount of such commissions . . . has been definitely determined 
and has become due and payable to [the] employee.'"  Tze-Kit Mui 
v. Massachusetts Port Auth., 478 Mass. 710, 712 (2018), quoting 
G. L. c. 149, § 148.  See Weems v. Citigroup Inc., 453 Mass. 
147, 151 (2009).  However, in so stating, we did not announce a 
categorical rule that commissions that do not meet those 
conditions are considered not to be wages under the act;11 
                     
did not put there, either by inadvertent omission or by 
design").  More significantly, as explained infra, the act does 
not allow an employer to set a condition under which it agrees 
to pay wages to an employee and then make it impossible for the 
employee to satisfy the condition in an effort to evade its 
responsibility to pay those wages.  Thus, we do not agree with 
this interpretation.  At any rate, whether and when the true-up 
commission became definitely determined and due and payable is 
not dispositive here.  As discussed infra, the unpaid true-up 
commission was a "lost wage" resulting from a separate violation 
of the act -- the defendants' retaliatory termination of the 
plaintiff. 
 
11 Although the act does not define "wages," the plain and 
ordinary meaning of the word "wage" is defined as "a pledge or 
payment of usually monetary remuneration by an employer 
especially for labor or services."  See Webster's Third New 
International Dictionary 2568 (1993); Commonwealth v. Bell, 442 
Mass. 118, 124 (2004) ("We derive the words' usual and accepted 
13 
 
 
instead, the clause provides that the failure to pay commissions 
when they are definitely determined and due and payable is one 
way to violate the act.  See Weber v. Coast to Coast Med., Inc., 
83 Mass. App. Ct. 478, 482 (2013), and cases cited.  Further, 
our cases interpreting the meaning of "definitely determined" 
and "due and payable" for the purposes of the timing of payment 
under the act did not contemplate whether unpaid commissions 
constitute "lost wages" resulting from retaliation.  Compare 
G. L. c. 149, § 148, fourth par., with G. L. c. 149, § 150, 
second par.  In other words, the clause defines when commissions 
become due to be paid promptly under the act; commissions that 
are not yet due to be paid may nonetheless constitute lost wages 
if the employer's violations of the act prevent payment of those 
commissions. 
In addition to penalizing employers for failing to pay 
wages promptly (including any commissions that have been 
definitely determined and have become due and payable), the Wage 
Act separately prohibits retaliation against an employee for 
                     
meanings from sources presumably known to the statute's 
enactors, such as their use in other legal contexts and 
dictionary definitions").  Thus, as a type of payment made based 
on a percentage of a sale, see Suominen v. Goodman Indus. 
Equities Mgt. Group, LLC, 78 Mass. App. Ct. 723, 738 (2011), a 
commission paid by an employer is clearly a "wage."  See also 
Awuah v. Coverall N. Am., Inc., 460 Mass. 484, 492 (2011) 
("Where an employee has completed the labor, service, or 
performance required of him, . . . he [or she] has 'earned' his 
[or her] wage"). 
14 
 
 
seeking to enforce his or her rights under the act.  Here, as 
noted, the jury found that the defendants violated the act both 
ways.  That is, EnerNOC failed to pay the entire amount of the 
commission due under the sales commission policy, in violation 
of G. L. c. 149, § 148, fourth par., and retaliated against the 
plaintiff after she complained about her pay, in violation of 
G. L. c. 149, § 148A. 
The retaliation, which took the form of terminating the 
plaintiff, had the effect of depriving the plaintiff of her 
right to be paid a commission under the true-up policy on the 
Eaton contract.  But for the defendants' actions, the plaintiff 
would have been employed at EnerNOC when the opt-out period 
expired, and would have received the commission due under the 
true-up policy.  Stated differently, as a result of the 
retaliation, the plaintiff did not receive wages she otherwise 
would have received.12  Wages lost as a result of retaliation are 
trebled under the Wage Act.  G. L. c. 149, §§ 148A, 150. 
                     
 
12 Of course, had Eaton exercised its right to terminate the 
contract before the expiration of the opt-out period, the 
plaintiff would not have been entitled to the true-up 
commission, regardless of her employment status.  However, when 
the opt-out period expired without Eaton terminating the 
contract, the defendants' retaliatory termination of the 
plaintiff became the sole cause of the plaintiff's losing her 
true-up commission.  On the facts before us, the true-up 
commission was a wage that the plaintiff lost solely because of 
the defendants' retaliation. 
 
15 
 
 
Contrary to the defendants' contention, this outcome is not 
affected by the EnerNOC policy that requires continuous 
employment through the expiration of a contract opt-out period 
to collect a commission based on the true-up policy.  Here, the 
true-up policy, in conjunction with EnerNOC's retaliatory 
termination of the plaintiff, made it impossible for the 
plaintiff to fulfill the only unmet contingency required to 
collect the true-up commission.  A policy that conditions 
payment on continued employment cannot relieve an employer from 
the obligation of paying a commission where the employer 
terminates its employee in retaliation for complaining about 
wage violations in the first place.  On these facts, the policy 
is therefore unenforceable under the Wage Act.13  Compare 
Electronic Data Sys. Corp., 454 Mass. at 68 (adopting Attorney 
General's position that "an employer may not enter into an 
agreement with an employee under which the employee forfeits 
earned wages, . . . [including] policies that condition the 
payment of [wages] on continuous employment"). 
                     
13 In so concluding, we do not suggest that a period of 
continued employment is per se an inappropriate prerequisite 
upon which to condition a commission.  However, such a 
contingency cannot be relied upon by an employer to create 
circumstances under which the contingency goes unfulfilled in 
order to deny a commission that otherwise would be due and 
payable to an employee. 
16 
 
 
This result makes logical sense because a fundamental 
purpose of the Wage Act would be undercut if employers could 
escape liability under the act by retaliating against employees 
to avoid paying commissions that would otherwise be due and 
payable.  See id. at 70 ("As its 'special contracts' clause 
recognizes, the Wage Act would have little value if employers 
could exempt themselves simply by drafting contracts that placed 
compensation outside its bounds").  See also Meyer v. Veolia 
Energy N. Am., 482 Mass. 208, 212 (2019), quoting Commonwealth 
v. Curran, 478 Mass. 630, 633-634 (2018) ("Our principal 
objective is to ascertain and effectuate the intent of the 
Legislature in a way that is consonant with 'common sense and 
sound reason'").  Indeed, one of the questions on the verdict 
form was whether EnerNOC committed a "breach [of] the implied 
covenant of good faith and fair dealing by firing [the 
plaintiff] to avoid paying commissions she would have earned 
under the 'true-up' policy if the Eaton contract was not 
terminated"; the jury answered "yes."  See generally Fortune v. 
National Cash Register Co., 373 Mass. 96, 104-105 (1977) 
(terminating salesperson to avoid paying bonuses due upon 
delivery of goods already contracted for was violation of 
implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing).  An employment 
policy cannot provide a loophole through which an employer may 
achieve such a result via retaliatory termination. 
17 
 
 
As the jury found, and the judge noted, the award of 
$349,098.48 accounted for the amount that "would have been due 
and payable to [the plaintiff] one year later if she had not 
been fired, once Eaton decided not to exercise its contractual 
right to terminate its software contract."  Because the jury 
specifically found that $349,098.48 was the amount of "unpaid 
Eaton contract commissions that [the plaintiff] lost because of 
unlawful retaliation," that amount constitutes lost wages and 
must be trebled.14 
 
Conclusion.  For the reasons stated, we conclude that there 
was sufficient evidence to support the jury's determination that 
EnerNOC owed the plaintiff an additional commission amount based 
on the company's true-up policy, and that the entire amount of 
the unpaid commission, not just that which was attributable to 
the guaranteed portion of the contract, must be trebled under 
the statute. 
 
We therefore affirm the denial of the defendants' motion 
for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.  We vacate only that 
portion of the judgment pertaining to compensatory damages of 
$349,098.48 for the unpaid commission under the true-up policy, 
                     
14 We emphasize that, regardless of the total amount awarded 
for retaliation damages (here, the retaliation damages comprised 
$349,098.48 for lost commission payments, $40,000 for emotional 
distress, and $240,000 as punitive damages), only that portion 
determined to be lost wages (here, $349,098.48) is trebled. 
18 
 
 
which shall be trebled pursuant to G. L. c. 149, § 150.  The 
amended judgment also shall include an award of statutory 
prejudgment interest, as required by law. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So ordered.