Opinion ID: 1402767
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did the trial court err in finding the Payment of Wages Act applies to prospective wages?

Text: Appellant contends that the trial court erred in awarding Mathis damages for prospective wages under the Payment of Wages Act. [3] We agree. As noted above, this Court has held that the purpose of the Payment of Wages Act is to protect employees from the unjustified and willful retention of wages by the employer. Rice, 318 S.C. at 98, 456 S.E.2d at 383. The Act itself defines the term wages as follows: Wages means all amounts at which labor rendered is recompensed, whether the amount is fixed or ascertained on a time, task, piece, or commission basis, or other method of calculating the amount and includes vacation, holiday, and sick leave payments which are due to an employee under any employer policy or employment contract. Funds placed in pension plans or profit sharing plans are not wages subject to this chapter. S.C.Code Ann. § 41-10-10(2) (Supp.2009) (emphasis added). The past tense of the word rendered suggests services provided in the past. The word recompensed too suggests that payment is for labor already completed. See Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 1897 (2002) (defining recompensed in part, as an equivalent or a return for something done, suffered, or given). Other sections of the Payment of Wages Act speak of acts done in the past. See, e.g., S.C.Code Ann. §§ 41-10-40(D) (Every employer in the State shall pay all wages due at the time and place designated....); 41-10-50 (When an employer separates an employee from the payroll ... the employer shall pay all wages due ....); 41-10-80(C) (In case of any failure to pay wages due to an employee ....). The word due means owed or owing as a debt and, as wages are defined by the Act as amounts paid for labor rendered, no wages can be due for future services. See Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 699 (2002). Based on the plain language of the statutes in the Payment of Wages Act, the Act does not apply to prospective wages. See Hodges v. Rainey, 341 S.C. 79, 85, 533 S.E.2d 578, 581 (2000) (Where the statute's language is plain and unambiguous and conveys a clear and definite meaning, the rules of statutory interpretation are not needed and the court has no right to impose another meaning.). A majority of other jurisdictions addressing this issue have interpreted similar statutes as applying only to services rendered in the past. [4] North Carolina courts have found that future unearned wages are not wages for purposes of its Wage and Hour Act, which contains a definition of wage similar to the definition of wages found in the South Carolina Act. See, e.g., Narron v. Hardee's Food Sys., 75 N.C.App. 579, 583, 331 S.E.2d 205, 208 (N.C.Ct.App.1985), overruled on other grounds (the Wage and Hour Act requires an employer... to pay those wages and benefits due when the employee has actually performed the work required to earn them.). In support of his argument that the Payment of Wages Act applies to future wages, Mathis cites to a case from the Louisiana Court of Appeals, Saacks v. Mohawk Carpet Corp., 855 So.2d 359 (La.Ct.App.2003). In Saacks , the Louisiana court found that amounts owed under a fixed-term contract constituted wages under a Louisiana statutory scheme similar to the Payment of Wages Act. We do not find Saacks persuasive as the case contains little discussion of the past wages versus future wages issue and espouses a view which it appears has not been adopted by any other jurisdiction. We find persuasive the argument advanced by the amici, that while prospective or post-termination earnings may be awarded as damages for breach of contract, they do not constitute wages. We find the trial court erred in finding the Payment of Wages Act applied to future wages. Accordingly, the treble damages award should be reduced from $127,199.94 to $46,073.25. [5]