Court Opinion

ID: 9567072
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:48:03.889549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:32.253670
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I agree with the majority that, with certain limitations, the remedies provided by *180I.C. §§ 45-606 and 45-615(4) are alternative, and that this wage claimant was entitled to proceed under I.C. § 45-606 because he has a claim for unpaid wages following the termination of his employment. However, in view of the amount of the wage claim in this case, i. e., $540,1 the remedy in I.C. § 45-615(4) was not available to appellant, and the Court has erred in sustaining the triple damages award.
I.C. § 45-606, together with I.C. §§ 45-605 and -607, set forth the rules for damages, attorney fees and liens for collection of damages in suits brought by an employee against his employer for collection of wages following termination of employment. These sections were all enacted by 1911.
In 1967 the legislature added I.C. §§ 45-609-613, -615,2 to this chapter. These sections set forth rules concerning requirements for the regular payment of wages, the allowable lag between the end of a pay period and a payday, withholding of a portion of an employee’s wages and the notification of the amounts of wages withheld; furthermore, the last of these sections provides that the director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Services may bring suit on behalf of certain wage claimants:
“45-615. Proceedings for collection of wages and damages — $450 limit. — 1. Claims filed with the director of the department of labor and industrial services as set forth in this chapter are limited to four hundred fifty dollars ($450) for each employee.
“2. Any proceeding by one (1) or more employees to assert any claim arising under or pursuant to this act may be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction, either as individual, class or representative suits.
“3. Whenever the director determines that one (1) or more employees have claims for unpaid wages he may . maintain any proceeding appropriate to enforce the claim or claims, including additional fixed damages pursuant to this act. .
“4. Any judgment for the plaintiff in a proceeding pursuant to this act shall include all costs reasonably incurred in connection with the proceedings and the plaintiff, or the director in his behalf, shall be entitled to recover from the defendant, as damages, three (3) times the amount of unpaid wages found due and owing.
. ”3 (Emphasis added).
The only proceedings established by the 1967 act are those in which the director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Services represents a wage claimant. Subsection 1 of I.C. § 45-615 authorizes the director to represent wage claimants for any claim of $450 or less established by the “chapter”. However, the damage provisions contained in subsections 3 and 4 of that section apply only to proceedings pursuant to “this act,” i. e., the 1967 act which established the proceedings in which the claimant is represented by the director, not to all proceedings under «the chapter. Therefore, in my opinion, the triple damage provision of I.C. § 45-615(4) is only available to a claimant who initiates a proceeding pursuant to the 1967 act, i. e., a proceeding in which the director represents the claimant. Wage claimants who do not proceed through the director with their claims are controlled by I.C. §§ 45-605-607.
This wage claimant was not entitled to triple damages under I.C. § 45-615 because he was not represented by the director. *181Indeed, he was ineligible to be represented by the director because his wage claim, which was $540, exceeded the limit set forth in I.C. § 45-615(1). For that reason, his sóle and exclusive remedy for collection of the entire unpaid wage claim was set forth in I.C. § 45-605-607. Under those sections, the plaintiff was entitled to his $540 wage claim, 30 days additional wages, together with attorney fees if the requisite demand provided in I.C. § 45-605 was made.
I am not unmindful of the fact that the recent decision of Goff v. H. J. H. Co., 95 Idaho 837, 521 P.2d 661 (1974); held contrary to this conclusion. In that case the Court approved the trebling of a wage claim brought by the claimant himself in an amount in excess of the $450 which may be' assigned to the commissioner of labor. However, the issue as raised by the parties in that case was not whether I.C. § 45-615 was applicable to the claim, but whether or not the penalty provided in I.C. § 45-615(4) was mandatory in all cases or only where there was a showing that the employer “acted with wantonness, wilfulness, fraud or oppression” as the district court had interpreted the statute. The question posed by the Court was as follows:
“The Court is asked to decide whether I.C. § 45-615(4) requires that treble damages be awarded to any successful plaintiff in a suit for wages wrongfully withheld, even without a showing that the person who withheld the wages acted with malice, wantonness, fraud or oppression.” 95 Idaho at 838, 521 P.2d at 662.
Without addressing the question of whether or not I.C. § 45-615(4) was even applicable at all to the wage claim in that case, and assuming that it was, we held that it was unnecessary to show that the employer acted “with wantonness, wilfulness, fraud or oppression” in order to collect treble damages under that section, but merely that the employer had withheld the wages. Now that the issue is directly before us in this case, we must decide what the legislature intended when it enacted chapter 436 of the 1967 Session Laws which added I.C. §§ 45-609-613 and 45-615, to chapter 6 of Title 45. Recognizing that those sections are no model of draftsmanship,4 the most reasonable interpretation appears to me to be that set out above, i. e., that a wage claim which the wage claimant handles himself must be handled pursuant to I.C. § 45-605-608, and that the triple damages set out in § 45-615(4) are inapplicable. I would reverse and remand to the district court for a re-computation of appellant’s wage claim under I.C. §§ 45-605-608.
If the majority of the Court is correct, however, and he can proceed under either one then I see no other conclusion than that the employee would be entitled to both the additional thirty days wages provided for in § 45-606, and the treble damages provided for in § 45-615(4).

. The $540 figure is for wages due before withholding for income and FICA taxes; the claimant would only have been entitled to $453.33 after withholding of these taxes. The $540 figure is used in determining the penalty due, not the $453.33 amount that would be paid after withholding of taxes.

. The original bill introduced also contained a section, 45-614, which provided that failure to comply with the act was a misdemeanor. When this section was eliminated, the remaining section was not renumbered, and in the final bill as approved, reference was still made in Sec. 6 to 45-614, which had been removed from the bill.

.The section is quoted as it appears after 1971 and 1974 amendments.

. The quality of the draftsmanship of chapter 436 of the 1967 Session Laws is further exemplified by the fact that throughout the act both in the title and the body it refers to the amendment of “chapter 6 of title 44, Idaho Code, . by adding a new section thereto, following section 45-608, to be known and designated as section 45-609. . . . ” Apparently no one noticed that the title to the act proposed to amend Title 44, while the body of the bill proceeded to amend Title 45, something which Art. 3, § 16, of the Constitution prohibits. Legislation which has obviously had so little attention to technical drafting requirements, can only at best confuse, and at worst frustrate the legislative intention. However, we must take it as we find it, hoping to make a reasonable interpretation of these divergent provisions, recognizing that, “You can never make a silken Purse of a Sow’s Ear.” Dykes, English Proverbs (1709), p. 117.