Court Opinion

ID: 9611478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:57:13.024594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:14.508642
License: Public Domain

NELSON, Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
Although I concur in the majority’s holdings regarding the good faith aspect of this wage dispute (see Apache East, Inc. v. Wiegand, supra) and the interpretation of the employment contracts, I must dissent from that portion of the decision that refuses to differentiate the portion of the statute (A.R.S. § 23-355, supra) providing for costs and reasonable attorney’s fees from the portion allowing a recovery of “treble damages” based upon the amount of wages unpaid.
I would hold that an award of attorney’s fees is mandatory whenever an employee is ultimately successful in a “failure to pay wages” claim filed under A.R.S. § 23-355. Without such a result, the whole purpose of the statute is frustrated, as it will be in this ease.
The total amount of the wage judgments in this case, for both employees, is $2,695.98. To this point in time, this case has involved counsel in pleadings, vigorous pre-trial motions and discovery work, a two-day court trial, post-trial motions, and a complete civil appeal and cross-appeal, including oral argument. An affidavit of record in this case recites the expenditure of a total of 69 hours, including most, but not all, post-trial memorandum and motions, and not including any of the time spent on this appeal. The affidavit further suggests a rate of $50 per hour, certainly a reasonable rate in this *540day and age. Thus we have an attorney’s fee of $3,450.00 for the trial of this action. When you add another $2,500 to $3,500 to that sum for the processing of the appeal, and compare it with the total sums recovered ($2,695.98), the appellants are more than $4,000 in the red after successfully prosecuting a “failure to pay wages” claim under A.R.S. § 23-355, supra. Such a result cannot have been contemplated by the legislature in enacting this “remedial” statute.
This statute should be liberally construed “to advance the remedy provided by the act”. Brandt v. Impero, 1 Wash.App. 678, 463 P.2d 197, 199 (1969). See also: Apache East, Inc. v. Wiegand, supra; Acevedo v. Phoenix Opportunities Industrialization Center, 27 Ariz.App. 156, 551 P.2d 1322 (1976). While I concurred in Apache East, supra, since the treble damage portion of the statute is clearly discretionary and is invoked as a penalty, I believe the awarding of costs and attorney’s fees is not to penalize the employer but to enable the employee to avail himself of the forum.
While A.R.S. § 12-341.01, as indicated by tlie majority (see Note 1, supra) was enacted subsequent to this litigation and may not apply to this type of litigation even now (see A.R.S. § 12-341.01, subsection A), its language is nonetheless useful in construing the earlier statute on the same subject matter, even though more specific. See generally: Shirley v. Superior Court in and for County of Apache, 109 Ariz. 510, 513 P.2d 939 (1973), cert. denied 415 U.S. 917, 94 S.Ct. 1415, 39 L.Ed.2d 472 (1974); Arizona State Highway Commission v. Nelson, 105 Ariz. 76, 459 P.2d 509 (1969). In subsection B of A.R.S. § 12-341.01, supra, the legislature provides:
“B. The award of reasonable attorney’s fees should be made to mitigate the burden of the expense of litigation for a just claimant. It need not equal or relate to the attorney’s fees actually paid or contracted.”
Contrast this language with that portion of A.R.S. § 23-355 dealing with costs (generally not discretionary, A.R.S. §§ 12-341 et seq.) and attorney’s fees:
“. . ., together with costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees to be allowed by the court on the basis of time and effort expended by counsel in behalf of the plaintiff-employee." (Emphasis added)
In directing the court to allow the attorney’s fees to be computed based upon actual time and effort on the one hand (A.R.S. § 23-355) and only in an amount to mitigate the actual cost on the other hand (A.R.S. § 12-341.01), it appears to me that there is a strong legislative intent to force the employer to pay the full cost of wage litigation, including the actual attorney’s fees incurred, when the plaintiff employee is a “just claimant”. If this is not the case, it will only be possible for the average wage earner to avail himself of this statutory remedy when the refusal to pay wages is obviously arbitrary and malicious. In every other case, he runs the risk of losing more than he gains even when he “wins” (as here), in direct contravention of the intent of the legislature to provide him a remedy.
There is sufficient discretion in the “treble damage” provision to cover the issue of good or bad faith. To extend that discretion to the allowance of attorney’s fees is to totally emasculate the purpose of this remedial statute.
I would reverse that portion of the judgment which refused to award attorney’s fees as directed by the statute. In addition, I would request an itemization of counsel’s time spent on appeal and award attorney’s fees in this Court in accordance with the statute.