SPEEA v. Boeing Co.
| Decision Date | 27 January 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 67519-8.,67519-8. |
| Citation | 139 Wash.2d 824,991 P.2d 1126 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | SEATTLE PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION, an Unincorporated voluntary association; Victoria Beach, William Osborn, Todd Ritcheson, and Brant Castleton, individuals, on behalf of themselves and all persons similarly situated, Petitioners, and Department of Labor and Industries, State of Washington, Petitioner, v. The BOEING COMPANY, Respondent/Cross-Petitioner. |
Lane, Powell, Spears & Lubersky, Douglas Edward Smith, Seattle, for Amicus Curiae on behalf of Washington Retail Association.
Webster, Mrak & Blumberg, James Henry Webster, Lynn Denise Weir, Richard Paul Blumberg, Seattle, Christine Gregoire, Attorney General, Martha Patricia Lantz, Asst. Atty. Gen., Olympia, for Petitioners.
Perkins, Coie, Philip S. Morse, Karen P. Kruse, Seattle, for Respondent.
We are asked in this case to decide the scope of the remedy afforded Boeing employees required by the company to attend, without compensation, mandatory pre-employment orientation sessions, which the company now concedes constituted work. Under the theories of the case presented to us, we hold the employees not otherwise exempt under Washington Minimum Wage Act (WMWA), chapter 49.46 RCW, were entitled to recover damages as specified in RCW 49.46.080. We further hold the applicable limitation period for the employees' claims is three years. Finally, we find the employees did not state contractual or equitable claims against Boeing. Consequently, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
1. Did the employees here state claims under the WMWA?
2. What is the measure of damages for claims under the WMWA when an employer fails to pay an employee for work?
3. Which statute of limitations is applicable to claims under the WMWA?
4. Did the employees state claims in contract or equity?
5. Are the employees' claims, if any, preempted by federal labor law?
For many years prior to this lawsuit, Boeing required new employees to attend, without pay, a "pre-employment" orientation session. Employees would engage in a myriad of activities during these sessions, including completing payroll forms, selecting employee benefit options, signing tax forms for Boeing, executing documents assigning any interest in new inventions to Boeing, viewing Boeing videos, hearing union presentations, and being photographed for security badges. These sessions lasted up to a day.1 Boeing clearly informed each class member they would not be paid for the pre-employment session. For instance, the following paragraph was included in the confirmatory letter Boeing sent to one of the individual employees:
We have scheduled you for a pre-employment signup processing and orientation in our Employment Office on April 4, 1991, beginning at 7:45 a.m. Your first day on the payroll will be April 5, 1991. Please call ... if you will be unable to meet this schedule.
Seattle Professional Engineering Employees Association (SPEEA) is the representative for many of Boeing's professional and technical employees, including some of the class members, for purposes of collective bargaining on pay, wages, hours and other working conditions. SPEEA was aware of Boeing's pre-employment orientation sessions and negotiated with Boeing to allow its representatives to discuss union membership with employees at these sessions.
In 1992, SPEEA filed a complaint with the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (DLI), the state agency responsible for the administration and enforcement of Washington's wage and hours laws, Title 49 RCW. DLI found Boeing's pre-employment orientation sessions constituted work.
Ultimately, SPEEA and several individual employees (the employees) instituted this class action in the King County Superior Court on their own behalf and for all similarly situated present and former Boeing employees nationwide, alleging the orientation sessions were work for which Boeing owed them compensation. The trial court certified the individual employees as representatives of a class of persons hired or rehired by Boeing between December 15, 1989 and April 2, 1996 in a number of states. The DLI intervened before class certification, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief and damages on its own behalf and for current and former employees of Boeing.
The parties moved for summary judgment on liability. Boeing sought dismissal of all the individual wage-hour law, contract, and quasi-contract claims on the merits because the claims were barred by a two-year statute of limitations. Boeing also contended the claims of the union-represented class members should be dismissed as pre-empted by federal labor law and because the employees failed to exhaust contractual remedies. The employees asserted the mandatory pre-employment orientation sessions were work, and they were entitled to compensation at their regular rate of pay for such work; they contended a six-year statute of limitations applied to their claims.
The trial court, the Honorable Michael Spearman, ruled the employees' attendance at orientation sessions constituted work, for which the employees were entitled to compensation. The trial court denied relief on the employees' individual contract and quasi-contract claims, but ruled the employees were entitled to relief based on the WMWA, measured by the statutory hourly wage on the basis of an eight-hour day. The court denied relief to class members who were professional, executive, and administrative employees because they were exempt from the WMWA. The court also held the employees' claims were subject to a three-year statute of limitations, not the two-year limit argued by Boeing. The court allowed relief to certain out-of-state employees in those states with minimum wage acts and denied relief to employees in states without such laws. The trial court further ruled the statutory claims were not pre-empted by federal labor law. Ultimately, the trial court entered judgment in the amount of $420,157.50 in favor of the employees.2
The parties appealed. Rather than appealing the entire trial court decision, Boeing elected to appeal only those portions of the decision pertaining to remedies and the applicable statute of limitations. Thus, Boeing conceded the mandatory pre-employment orientation sessions constituted work. Subsequently, the Court of Appeals, Division One, affirmed the trial court in all respects, except for the amount of wages owed to those employees covered by the WMWA. The court held those employees were entitled to recover the rate of pay specified in their contracts, not merely the statutory minimum wage rate. Seattle Prof'l Eng'g Employees Ass'n v. Boeing Co., 92 Wash.App. 214, 963 P.2d 204 (1998). The parties petitioned us for review essentially on Washington law theories of recovery, which we granted.
In light of Boeing's concession that its mandatory pre-employment orientation sessions constituted work, the principal issue in this case is the remedy available under Washington law to the employees for Boeing's refusal to pay them for their work.
Before analyzing the particular contentions of the parties on the available remedies, it is useful to again review Washington's statutory wage-hour remedies for employees. The Washington Legislature has enacted a series of statutory remedies for employees wrongfully deprived of proper wages. As we noted in Schilling v. Radio Holdings, Inc., 136 Wash.2d 152, 157-58, 961 P.2d 371 (1998):
The Legislature has evidenced a strong policy in favor of payment of wages due employees by enacting a comprehensive scheme to ensure payment of wages, including the statutes at issue here which provide both criminal and civil penalties for the willful failure of an employer to pay wages. See United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 1001 v. Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co., 84 Wash.App. 47, 51-52, 925 P.2d 212 (1996) (). In RCW 49.48, the Legislature mandated that employers pay employees all wages due upon the conclusion of the employment relationship and banned all withholding or diversion of wages by employers unless specifically approved by statute. RCW 49.48.010. The Legislature allowed recovery of attorney fees in actions to recover wages due. RCW 49.48.030. The Department of Labor and Industries was given concurrent administrative enforcement powers for claims of failure to pay wages. RCW 49.48.040—.070.
The Legislature also established a remedy of exemplary damages if an employer willfully refuses to pay wages. RCW 49.52.050 provides, in pertinent part, that "[a]ny employer or officer, vice principal or agent of any employer" is guilty of a misdemeanor if that entity "[w]ilfully and with intent to deprive the employee of any part of his wages, [pays] any employee a lower wage than the wage such employer is obligated to pay such employee by any statute, ordinance, or contract[.]" RCW 49.52.050(2). RCW 49.52.070 provides a corresponding civil remedy against the employer, its officers and agents[.]
(Footnotes omitted.)
Thus, the Legislature provided an employee could recover for an employer's failure to pay compensation equivalent to the statutory minimum wage, or time and one-half at the employee's regular wage rate for overtime. Chapter 49.46 RCW. The employee could recover wages due at the termination of the employment relationship. Chapter 49.48 RCW. The employee could recover for wages withheld by an employer. Chapter 49.52 RCW. The import of this statutory scheme is that in circumstances where an employer paid no compensation whatsoever to an employee, the employee, if not otherwise...
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