Opinion ID: 2537211
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The trustees' status as constructive assignees of the workers' claims under NRS 339.035

Text: Nevertheless, whether the trustees' have standing to sue under NRS 339.035 is closely tied to their third-party-beneficiary status. In United States v. Carter, 353 U.S. 210, 211-12, 77 S.Ct. 793, 1 L.Ed.2d 776 (1957), the United States Supreme Court addressed whether trustees are entitled to recover unpaid contributions to employee-benefit trust funds under the federal Miller Act, 40 U.S.C. §§ 270b and 270c (1935), a statute nearly identical to NRS 339.035. At that time, the Miller Act provided that `[e]very person who has furnished labor or material in the prosecution of the work provided for in [a public works contract] and who has not been paid in full therefore ... shall have the right to sue on such payment bond ... for the sum or sums justly due him.' [4] Carter, 353 U.S. at 215, 77 S.Ct. 793 (quoting 40 U.S.C. § 270b(a) (1935)). The U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that the trustees were neither persons who have furnished labor or material, nor [were] they seeking `sums justly due' to persons who have furnished labor or material. Id. at 218, 77 S.Ct. 793. Nevertheless, after analyzing cases arising under a predecessor of the Miller Act, the Heard Act of 1894, see 40 U.S.C. § 270 (1934), which established that assignees of the claims of persons furnishing labor or material came within a statutory bond's protection, the Supreme Court noted that the analyses applied likewise to the Miller Act, which, the Supreme Court concluded, was even broader and more liberal in its scope than the Heard Act. Carter, 353 U.S. at 219, 77 S.Ct. 793. Thus, without determining whether any assignment occurred for Miller Act purposes, the Supreme Court noted that [i]f the assignee of an employee can sue on the bond, the trustees of the employees' fund should be able to do so.... The trustees stand in the shoes of the employees and are entitled to enforce their rights. Id. at 219-20, 77 S.Ct. 793; cf. U.S. Design & Constr. v. I.B.E.W. Local 357, 118 Nev. 458, 50 P.3d 170 (2002) (recognizing that employee-benefit trust-fund trustees are representatives of the employees earning the trust-fund contributions). Given the trustees' third-party-beneficiary status, the Supreme Court's analysis in Carter is persuasive here, and thus, we conclude that, like assignees, the trustees stand in the shoes of the workers and should be permitted to recover under NRS 339.035. Edgington v. Edgington, 119 Nev. 577, 584, 80 P.3d 1282, 1288 (2003) (providing that when a federal statute is adopted in a Nevada statute, using substantially similar language, `a presumption arises that the [L]egislature knew and intended to adopt the construction placed on the federal statute by federal courts' (quoting State, Bus. & Indus. v. Granite Constr., 118 Nev. 83, 88, 40 P.3d 423, 426 (2002))). Indeed, in U.S. Design & Construction v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 357, 118 Nev. 458, 50 P.3d 170, this court, without analysis, recognized that employee-benefit trust-fund trustees represent the employees who earned the trust-fund contributions by providing labor. Accordingly, the trustees have standing as representatives of the claimants. We do not agree, however, that the trustees' third-party-beneficiary status gives them any rights under NRS 339.035 over and above what the Legislature has given to the persons whom they represent and who are addressed in the statutethe employees.