Opinion ID: 1449696
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Heading: Whether Managers Can Be Employers Under State Law

Text: Chapter 608 of the Nevada Revised Statutes provides a statutory scheme for wage protection. An employer shall pay to the employee wages for each hour the employee works. Nev.Rev.Stat. § 608.016. Whenever an employer discharges an employee, the wages and compensation earned and unpaid at the time of such discharge shall become due and payable immediately. Nev.Rev.Stat. § 608.020. If an employer fails to pay: (a) Within 3 days after the wages or compensation of a discharged employee becomes due ... the wages or compensation of the employee continues at the same rate from the day he ... was discharged until paid or for 30 days, whichever is less. Nev. Rev.Stat. § 608.040(1). The application of these statutes to the present case depends on whether the defendants were employers under Chapter 608. `Employer' includes every person having control or custody of any employment, place of employment or any employee. Nev.Rev.Stat. § 608.011. Whether the defendants as individual managers can be held to be employers under § 608.011 is a question of first impression. Neither the Nevada Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit had published an opinion analyzing the definition of employer under Nevada Revised Statutes § 608.011. Because this question has significant implications for Nevada's wage protection law and because we could not be certain how the Nevada Supreme Court would resolve the matter, we certified the question to the Nevada Supreme Court. See Boucher v. Shaw, 483 F.3d 613 (9th Cir.2007). The Nevada Supreme Court held that individual managers could not be found liable as employers under Chapter 608. Boucher v. Shaw, 124 Nev. 96, 196 P.3d 959, 960 (2008). The court explained that it would not expand the common law definition of employer to include individual managers without a clear expression of legislative intent. At common law, an employment relationship was defined by agency principles, under which, unless otherwise agreed, an agent ( e.g., a manager) for a disclosed principal ( e.g., the employing company) does not become party to the employment contract for the principal's debts. Id. at 961. As stated above, the Nevada legislature has enacted a statutory definition of employer, but that definition does not unequivocally indicate[ ] the legislature's intent to depart from the common law rule. Id. at 963. In particular, Nevada's statutory definition of employer does not include corporate managers, agents or officers in an enumerated list of employers, as is the case in the statutes of other states. Instead, the statute ambiguously provides that `[e]mployer' includes every person having control or custody of any employment, place of employment or any employee, Nev.Rev.Stat. § 608.011, without defining person, or offering guidance on what constitutes control or custody. In the absence of clear legislative intent, the Nevada court refused to presume that the Legislature meant to equate individual managers with employers. Id. It follows that the managers in the present case cannot be held personally liable as employers under Chapter 608. The plaintiffs' state law claims were properly dismissed. Because the union is a plaintiff only with respect to the state law claim, the issue of the union's standing is moot and we do not reach it.