Opinion ID: 2630552
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Colorado's Wage Claim Act

Text: Although the General Assembly has amended the Colorado Wage Claim Act periodically, its basic design has endured since its adoption in 1901. The law has always had two basic components. First, an employer must pay an employee at regular intervals. See § 8-4-105(1), 3 C.R.S. (2002). It is clear that the intent of these labor laws was to protect employees from exploitation, fraud and oppression by requiring employers to pay workers in United States currency at regular intervals. Jet Courier Serv., Inc. v. Mulei, 771 P.2d 486, 503 (Colo.1989) (Mullarkey, J. concurring). Second, when the employing entity terminates the employment relationship it created, it must pay the employees all earned but yet unpaid wages and compensation, within the time period the Wage Claim Act prescribes. See § 8-4-104(1)(a), 3 C.R.S. (2002). The Colorado Wage Claim Act is a powerful law that the General Assembly first enacted in 1901 during a period when labor strife was endemic in the mining regions. [1] Originally, the Wage Claim Act applied only to corporations. Ch.55, sec. 1, 1901 Colo. Sess. Laws 128. In 1919, the General Assembly added quasi-public corporations. Ch. 183, sec. 1, § 6981, 1919 Colo. Sess. Laws 617. In 1959, the legislature adopted a broad definition of employer that gives rise to Leonard's contention in this case. Ch. 176, sec. 2, § 80-25-1 et seq., 1959 Colo. Sess. Laws 537. No legislative history of the General Assembly's discussion when it adopted the expanded definition of employer is available. [2] When we view the employer definition in the context of the Wage Claim Act as a whole, we find that the General Assembly's evident purpose was to make the Act applicable to other entities and persons, beyond just corporations and quasi-public corporations. Nonetheless, the Wage Claim Act focuses on the liability of the entity or person who created and maintained the employment relationship for payment of the wages and compensation due and payable under the employment contract. Most important to resolution of the present case, none of the substantive provisions of our Wage Claim Act contain language approximating the Kansas and Illinois provisions for personal officer and agent liability. The Colorado Wage Claim Act's definition of wages and its employee termination provision make this apparent. As used in this article ... (9) Wages or compensation means all amounts for labor or service performed by employees, whether the amount is fixed or ascertained by the standard of time, task, piece, commission basis, or other method of calculating the same or whether the labor or service is performed under contract, subcontract, partnership, subpartnership, station plan, or other agreement for the performance of labor or service if the labor or service to be paid for is performed personally by the person demanding payment. § 8-4-101(9), 3 C.R.S. (2002) (emphasis added). Thus, the definition of wages refers to the employment contract relationship the business entity or person creates and maintains with an employee. The due and payable upon termination of the employee relationship provision of the Wage Claim Act, section 8-4-104(1)(a), provides: When an interruption in the employer-employee relationship by volition of the employer occurs, the wages or compensation for labor or service earned and unpaid at the time of such discharge is due and payable immediately. If at such time the employer's accounting unit, responsible for the drawing of payroll checks, is not regularly scheduled to be operational, then the wages due the separated employee shall be made available to the employee no later than six hours after the start of such employer's next regular workday; except that, if the accounting unit is located off the work site, the employer shall deliver the check for wages due the separated employee no later than twenty-four hours after the start of such employer's next regular workday ... § 8-4-104(1)(a), 3 C.R.S. (2002) (emphasis added). This language, like that of the wages definition, plainly refers to the employment contract relationship and focuses on the accounting unit of the entity or person that hired the employee and is responsible for meeting the payroll. The Wage Claim Act sets forth the employing entity's duty to make periodic payments in section 8-4-105(1): All wages or compensation, other than those mentioned in section 8-4-104, earned by any employee in any employment, other than those specified in subsection (3) of this section, shall be due and payable for regular pay periods of no greater duration than one calendar month or thirty days, whichever is longer, and on regular paydays no later than ten days following the close of each pay period unless the employer and the employee shall mutually agree on any other alternative period of wage or salary payments. [3] § 8-4-105(1), 3 C.R.S. (2002). Thus, section 8-4-105(1) imposes a duty to make periodic payroll payments at least once during the calendar month unless the employer and the employee agree otherwise. Accordingly, the basic design of the Wage Claim Act is to (1) ensure a mechanism for regular payment of employee wages and (2) make all earned but unpaid employee wages and compensationthat are due and payableavailable to the employee immediately upon termination of the employment relationship. But, no substantive provision of our Wage Claim Act contains words making officers and agents personally liable for wage payment. The issue we now turn to is whether the General Assembly intended the Wage Claim Act's definition of employer to supersede Colorado's otherwise applicable corporate law, which makes officers and agents of a corporation liable only in their representative capacity, and not personally. We conclude that the General Assembly intended these corporate law principles to function in the context of the Wage Claim Act, not to displace them.