Opinion ID: 2631872
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Statutory construction of NRS 608.110

Text: NRS 608.110(1) permits an employer to withhold a portion of an employee's wages if the employee gives written authorization for the withholding: 1. This chapter does not preclude the withholding from the wages or compensation of any employee of any dues, rates or assessments becoming due to any hospital association or to any relief, savings or other department or association maintained by the employer or employees for the benefit of the employees, or other deductions authorized by written order of an employee. The hearing officer concluded that Orleans could not rely upon NRS 608.110 because requiring an employee to sign a pre-employment acknowledgement of Orleans' cash shortage policy was a prospective waiver of an employee's rights and was not a knowing and intelligent waiver of [the employee's] right to receive full pay. The hearing officer also concluded that agreements which require an employee to agree to a deduction as a condition to receiving compensation are void, and that deductions made pursuant to the statute must be for the benefit of the employee. The primary issue before us is whether the disjunctive phrase other deductions authorized by written order of an employee in NRS 608.110(1) permits Orleans to withhold amounts equivalent to cash shortages from employees' wages, regardless of whether the withholding is for the benefit of the employee, so long as its employees sign shortage slips authorizing the withholding. Orleans contends that the plain language of NRS 608.110(1) permits such withholdings. The Labor Commission, however, contends that all withholdings pursuant to NRS 608.110 must be for the benefit of the employee, because the rules of statutory construction require that a general phrase take its meaning from a specific phrase, and in this case, the general phrase other deductions authorized by written order of an employee in NRS 608.110(1) follows the specific phrase for the benefit of the employees. The Labor Commission argues that when read together with NRS 608.016, which requires an employer to compensate an employee for each hour of work, and NRS 608.100(2), which makes it unlawful for employers to require employees to rebate or return any part of their wage, NRS 608.110(1) does not permit employers to withhold amounts equivalent to cash shortages from employees' wages. When the language of a statute is plain and unambiguous, a court should give that language its ordinary meaning and not go beyond it. [4] Under established principles of statutory construction, when a statute is susceptible to but one natural or honest construction, that alone is the construction that can be given. [5] However, when more than one interpretation of a statute can reasonably be drawn from its language, the statute is ambiguous and the plain meaning rule has no application. [6] Additionally, courts must construe statutes to give meaning to all of their parts and language, and this court will read each sentence, phrase, and word to render it meaningful within the context of the purpose of the legislation. [7] We read the plain language of NRS 608.110(1) as Orleans reads it. Specifically, the clause other deductions authorized by written order of an employee is separated from the preceding clause by a comma and the disjunctive or. [8] The word or is typically used to connect phrases or clauses representing alternatives. [9] The fact that the two phrases in NRS 608.110(1) describing permissible deductions are separated by a comma and the word or indicates that the phrase other deductions authorized by written order of an employee in NRS 608.110(1) is in the alternative to, and is not conditioned by, the preceding clause. Further, the preceding clause in NRS 608.110(1) contains the words for the benefit of the employees, but the clause at issue in this case does not contain that language of limitation. [10] Generally, when the legislature has employed a term or phrase in one place and excluded it in another, it should not be implied where excluded. [11] The exclusion of the phrase for the benefit of the employees from the clause other deductions authorized by written order of an employee indicates that NRS 608.110(1) does not require that all withholdings benefit the employee, as long as the employee authorizes the deduction in writing. Additionally, former versions of NRS 608.110 contained the title Withholding of portion of wages for employee's benefit whereas the current version of the statute contains the title Withholding of portion of wages. [12] A title is typically prefixed to a statute in the form of a descriptive heading or a brief summary of the contents of the statute. [13] The title of a statute may be considered in determining legislative intent. [14] The deletion of the phrase for employee's benefit from the title of the current version of NRS 608.110 suggests that the legislature intended to permit withholding authorized in writing by the employee, including withholding for cash shortages, which is not necessarily for the employee's benefit. Accordingly, we conclude that the plain language of the phrase other deductions authorized by written order of an employee in NRS 608.110(1) permits an employer to withhold amounts equivalent to cash shortages from an employee's wages if the employee authorizes the withholding in writing. Thus, the hearing officer in this case erroneously determined that Orleans was not authorized by NRS 608.110(1) to withhold $520.00 from Meranian's payroll check on the ground that the deduction was not made for the benefit of the employee. Further, the hearing officer erred by concluding that such a cash shortage policy itself, or the practice of requiring an employee to acknowledge the policy in writing, before being hired by the employer, violates NRS 608.110(1). Nothing in NRS 608.110(1) prohibits an employer from having a policy that requires an employee to reimburse the employer via payroll deduction for cash shortages attributable to the employee so long as the employee authorizes the deduction in writing, nor is there anything in the statute prohibiting an employer from requiring an employee to acknowledge the policy in writing prior to the commencement of employment.