Court Opinion

ID: 9547866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:53:32.272793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:10.470785
License: Public Domain

GILLETTE, P. J.,
concurring in part and specially concurring in part.
I join in the result reached by the court in this case and in much of its reasoning. However, I specifically disagree with the interpretation — as opposed to the application — of ORS 652.200(2) (the attorney fee statute) in this case and therefore state my view separately.
ORS 652.200(2) provides:
“(2) In any action for the collection of wages, if it is shown that the wages were not paid for a period of 48 hours, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, after the same became due and payable, the court shall upon entering judgment for the plaintiff, include in such judgment, in addition to the costs and disbursements otherwise prescribed by statute, a reasonable sum for attorney’s fees for prosecuting said action, unless it appears that the employe has wilfully violated his contract of employment.”
The key phrase is “unless it appears that the employe has wilfully violated his contract of employment.” As I understand the majority’s interpretation of this subsection, it believes the statute means that:
“The employer shall, in a successful action to recover wages not paid within 48 hours of termination of employment, pay a reasonable attorney fee unless the employer can show at trial that the employee, at some time during his employment, committed an act which would have justified termination of employment.”
I have great difficulty with this interpretation.
The wage recovery statutes appear to me to be intended to provide for a relatively summary1 way for a person in a decidedly unequal bargaining position — an employe — to obtain what is really due him. The duty on the employer to pay is absolute. That is the message of ORS 652.140(2). Wilfull failure to pay can result in penalties. *504ORS 652.150. However, not even wilfullness is required in order to justify an attorney fee award. All that is required is that the wages were not paid and the employe was required to file an action.
Into this basically summary approach the legislature has injected the “wilfull violation” language of ORS 652.200(2). In my view, and in keeping with the summary theme of the statutory scheme, the employer’s “wilfull violation” defense should be limited to a wilfull violation that led to the employe’s discharge. The broader view taken by the majority turns a relatively simple trial into a potentially long and involved one, with the employer seeking to establish some misconduct in an employer/employe relationship that may have spanned decades.
In fact, these cases may very well be delayed in going to trial while the employer goes back and looks for some misconduct of which it was still unaware at the time the employe was finally forced to file a lawsuit. I cannot believe that the legislature intended to permit these basically simple cases to become so complicated.
Having noted my disagreement with the majority’s analysis, I nonetheless join in the result in this case because the outcome would be the same under my analysis.1
2

 I say “summary,” because of the 48-hour provision of ORS 652.140(2).

 In fact, strictly speaking, the majority’s analysis is a dictum,.