Amaya v. DGS Constr., LLC

• Decision Date: 24 February 2021
• Docket Number: No. 1857, Sept. Term, 2019,1857, Sept. Term, 2019
• Citation: 246 A.3d 616,249 Md.App. 462
• Parties: Mario Ernesto AMAYA, et al. v. DGS CONSTRUCTION, LLC, et al.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

249 Md.App. 462

246 A.3d 616

Mario Ernesto AMAYA, et al.

v.DGS CONSTRUCTION, LLC, et al.

No. 1857, Sept. Term, 2019

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

February 24, 2021

Argued by: Steven M. Pavsner (Brian J. Markovitz, Joseph Greenwald & Laake, PA, on the brief), Greenbelt, MD, for Appellant.

Argued by: Stephen M. Silvestri (Andrew Baskin, Jackson, Lews PC, on the brief), Baltimore, MD, for Appellee

Panel: Kehoe, Beachley, Shaw Geter, JJ.

Shaw Geter, J.

This is an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for Prince George's County granting appellees’ motion for summary judgment and denying appellants’ motion for partial summary judgment. Appellants timely appealed and present the following questions for our review:

1. Did the circuit court err in granting Appellees’ motion for summary judgment on Appellants’ Maryland state law claims based upon the Portal-to-Portal Act, contrary to the requirements under the Maryland Wage and Hour Law and the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law?

2. Did the circuit court err in denying Appellant's motion for partial summary judgment that Appellees were liable for unpaid wages for time spent waiting for buses and traveling between two worksites as required under COMAR § 09.12.41.10 ?

For reasons discussed below, we conclude there was no error and we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Appellants, Mario Ernesto Amaya and Jose Norland Gonzalez,¹ are carpenters who performed construction work for appellees, DGS Construction, LLC d/b/a Schuster Concrete Construction and Daniel G. Schuster, the CEO of DGS, a subcontractor on the construction site of the MGM National Harbor resort and casino located in Prince George's County, Maryland, in 2015-16.² Appellees required appellants to gain access to the MGM site by parking at the Rosecroft Raceway and then riding a shuttle bus provided by Whiting-Turner, the general contractor, at no cost to appellants.³ Appellants went through security and clocked-in upon reaching the MGM. At the end of their shifts, appellants were required to ride a shuttle back to their vehicles parked at Rosecroft.

Appellants were not compensated for wait and shuttle travel time or time spent passing through security upon entry to, or departure from, the MGM. The average length of uncompensated time was two hours, which was not recorded by appellees. During the transit time frame, appellants did not receive work directives or instructions, load or maintain tools or equipment, don or doff protective or specialty equipment or perform any construction work. All work was performed at the MGM.

Appellants filed a Complaint and Jury Demand in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County on September 15, 2017, and an Amended Complaint thereafter. Appellees filed a Motion to Dismiss on April 18, 2018, which was denied by the court. Appellees then filed an Answer. Appellants filed a Motion for Class Certification on February 15, 2019. The court bifurcated the case, reserving ruling on the issue of class certification until after a trial on the merits. Appellees filed a Motion for Summary Judgment and appellants filed a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and Request for Hearing; both parties filed their respective oppositions. Following a hearing on August 22, 2019, the court took the matter under advisement and issued its memorandum opinion and order on November 7, 2019, granting appellees’ Motion for Summary Judgment and denying appellants’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. The court found that "because the General Assembly chose to graft the definition of employ directly from FLSA into the [Maryland Wage and Hour Law (MWHL)], ... the interpretative guidance ... imposed by the existing Portal-to-Portal Act was also grafted into the MWHL." The court held that appellants did not perform "work" at Rosecroft, and thus, Rosecroft was not a worksite for the purposes of the MWHL.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under Maryland Rule 2-501, the grant of a motion for summary judgment is appropriate when "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the party in whose favor judgment is entered is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." "On review of an order granting summary judgment, our analysis ‘begins with the determination [of] whether a genuine dispute of material fact exists; only in the absence of such a dispute will we review questions of law.’ " Koste v. Town of Oxford , 431 Md. 14, 24–25, 63 A.3d 582 (2013) (quoting D'Aoust v. Diamond , 424 Md. 549, 574, 36 A.3d 941 (2012) ) (citations omitted). "The standard of review of a trial court's grant of a motion for summary judgment on the law is de novo , that is, whether the trial court's legal conclusions were legally correct." Id. (quoting Messing v. Bank of Am., N.A. , 373 Md. 672, 684, 821 A.2d 22 (2003) ).

There are no disputes of material facts in the case before us. Rather, the parties’ dispute revolves solely around questions of law, i.e., statutory construction. Therefore, we shall consider whether the circuit court's grant of summary judgment in favor of appellee was proper as a matter of law.

Our primary goal in statutory construction is "to discern the legislative purpose, the ends to be accomplished, or the evils to be remedied by a particular provision, be it statutory, constitutional or part of the Rules." Doe v. Montgomery County Bd. of Elections , 406 Md. 697, 712, 962 A.2d 342 (2008) (quoting Barbre v. Pope , 402 Md. 157, 172, 935 A.2d 699 (2007) ). "We begin our analysis by first looking to the normal, plain meaning of the language of the statute, reading the statute as a whole to ensure that ‘no word, clause, sentence or phrase is rendered surplusage, superfluous, meaningless or nugatory.’ " Id. (citations omitted). "If the language of the statute is clear and unambiguous, we need not look beyond the statute's provisions and our analysis ends." Barbre , 402 Md. at 173, 935 A.2d 699. "If[,] however, the language is subject to more than one interpretation, it is ambiguous, and we resolve that ambiguity by looking to the statute's legislative history, case law, and statutory purpose." Id. Courts "may also analyze the statute's ‘relationship to earlier and subsequent legislation, and other material that fairly bears on the fundamental issue of legislative purpose or goal, which becomes the context within which we read the particular language before us in a given case.’ " Blackstone v. Sharma , 461 Md. 87, 114, 191 A.3d 1188 (2018), reconsideration denied (Oct. 3, 2018) (quoting Kaczorowski v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore , 309 Md. 505, 515, 525 A.2d 628 (1987) ). We may also "consider the consequences resulting from one meaning rather than another, and adopt that construction which avoids an illogical or unreasonable result, or one which is inconsistent with common sense." Spangler v. McQuitty , 449 Md. 33, 50, 141 A.3d 156 (2016) (citations omitted).

DISCUSSION

Appellants argue that, under the Maryland Wage and Hour Law ("MWHL"), they are entitled to compensation for travel time between employer-designated worksites. They assert that because Maryland has not explicitly adopted the Portal-to-Portal Act, the exclusions under that Act for time spent traveling between worksites cannot be used to limit their compensation. They contend that both the MWHL and the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law ("MWPCL") are "remedial statute[s] to be construed liberally in favor of the employee." See Peters v. Early Healthcare Giver, Inc. , 439 Md. 646, 661, 97 A.3d 621 (2014).

Appellants argue that the definition of "hours of work" found in COMAR § 09.12.41.10 and the definition of "employ" contained in Maryland Code, Labor and Employment § 3-101(c), when read together, require compensation for travel from one worksite to another. Appellants cite Blackstone v. Sharma , stating that, when unambiguous on their face, courts should follow the plain language of statutes and regulations. 461 Md. 87, 119, 191 A.3d 1188 (2018), reconsideration denied (Oct. 3, 2018).

Conversely, appellees argue the MWHL is the "State parallel" to the FLSA, as amended by the Portal-to-Portal Act. They contend that the Portal-to-Portal Act has been in effect for 73 years, decades before Maryland adopted the MWHL and offers "interpretative guidance" for our analysis. Appellees cite to Poe v. IESI MD Corp. , where we explained that "because the Maryland statute is the counterpart to the Fair Labor Standards Act[,]" a federal regulation concerning the computation of overtime was "persuasive authority as to the correct interpretation of Maryland law." 243 Md. App. 243, 252, 220 A.3d 333 (2019) (citations omitted).

In 1938, Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act, ("FLSA"), 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq ., upon finding "the existence, in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers ...." 29 U.S.C. § 202.⁴ As enacted, the FLSA established a minimum wage and mandated that employers engaged in the production of goods provide employees overtime compensation for each hour worked in excess of 40 hours during a workweek. §§ 6(a)(1), 7(a)(3), 52 Stat. 1062–1063. Congress, in 1947, passed the Portal-to-Portal Act, 29 U.S.C. § 251 et seq. , amending certain provisions of the FLSA and absolving employers of liability under the FLSA for failure to pay minimum wages for certain delineated activities such as walking, riding or traveling to and from the actual workplace, and activities preliminary to or postliminary to principal work activities.

The Portal-to-Portal Act was promulgated one year after the Supreme Court's decision in Anderson v. Mt. Clemens Pottery Co. , where the Court interpreted the FLSA to provide that employees are entitled to compensation for time spent walking from the time clock to their workstations. 328 U.S. 680, 691, 66 S.Ct. 1187, 90 L.Ed. 1515 (1946) (noting that "[s]...