Court Opinion

ID: 9505478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:05:21.445971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:31.615701
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I write separately to observe that the reason treble damages can be imposed on the employer in this case is that the court ultimately determined that the employer's grounds for reducing its payments to the employee were legally unavailing. Thus, the holding of this case is that the full amount of the employee's earnings were the "amount due him" under the statute. Had the employer's grounds for withholding a part of the employee's wages been upheld, then the employer would have already paid the full "amount due" and treble damages would not be available.
BOEHM, Justice,
concurring.
I coneur in the majority opinion. I write separately to observe that the facts of this case dramatize the point that the statute confers on all employees the right to recover treble damages and attorney's fees for failure to pay wages, regardless of the employees' circumstances. This is perfectly understandable as applied to the vast majority of workers who are dependent on their paychecks for their day-today expenses. These employees need the money currently, not at the end of protracted litigation, and often do not have the economic staying power to engage in a court battle over relatively small amounts. A statute providing one party with treble damages and attorney's fees is a very substantial deterrent to an employer's playing fast and loose with wage obligations. As applied to claims of most workers this is very understandable legislative policy. But the "employee" who earns mid six figures should be able to fend for himself or herself, and there seems to me to be no reason to tip the balance of settlement value of any dispute so dramatically against the employer. The statute as written requires that result for all employees. I write simply to point out what seems to me to be an unnecessary and perhaps unfair skewing of the negotiation as applied to highly compensated executives and professionals.