American Mut. Liability Ins. Co. v. Commissioner of Labor and Industries

• Decision Date: 17 December 1959
• Parties: AMERICAN MUTUAL LIABILITY INSURANCE COMPANY v. COMMISSIONER OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 19

163 N.E.2d 19

340 Mass. 144

AMERICAN MUTUAL LIABILITY INSURANCE COMPANY v. COMMISSIONER OF LABOR AND INDUSTRIES.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued Oct. 8, 1959.

Decided Dec. 17, 1959.

Charles B. Rugg, Boston (William D. Andrews, Concord, with him), for plaintiff.

Leo Sontag, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Pasquale J. Piscitelli, Boston, with him), for defendant.

Before WILKINS, C. J., and RONAN, SPALDING, WILLIAMS, and WHITTEMORE, JJ.

WHITTEMORE, Justice.

This suit in equity for a declaratory decree was reserved and reported by a single justice, without decision, on the substitute bill, answer and statement of agreed facts.

The plaintiff asks construction of G.L. c. 149, § 148, as applied to its practice of paying employees on every other Wednesday at about 9 A.M., for services performed on the preceding four working days (Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday) and for services to be performed on the next working days.

General Laws c. 149, § 148, as amended through St.1956, c. 259, provides in part, 'Every person having employees in his service shall pay weekly each such employee the wages earned by him to within six days of the date of said payment if employed for five or six days in the week * * *.' There is a provision that executive, administrative or professional employees may be paid biweekly or semimonthly, but for purposes of this case the parties have agreed that approximately 1,109 of the plaintiff's employees are not within any of these categories.

We rule that the statute calls for weekly paydays and that the plaintiff's practice violates the requirement. The language directs the employer to 'pay weekly'; the associated modifying language and the wider context within the statute are confirmatory; such legislative history as there is indicates an intent to require payment weekly; this court has recognized such construction and no case shows the contrary.

The requirement for a weekly payday is confirmed by the context. The immediate qualification is that the weekly payment be of 'wages earned by * * * [the employee] to within six days of the date of said payment.' This has as its primary purpose, we take it, the limiting of the interval between the completion of a work week and the payday on which the wages earned in that week will be paid and is consistent with a weekly payday. The section authorizes action so that employees of a railroad or parlor or sleeping car corporation may be paid 'less frequently than weekly,' and that, as stated above, certain employees may 'be paid bi-weekly or semi-monthly'; also that agricultural and domestic service employees may be paid monthly. An employee who is a shareholder of a coperative association is exempted unless 'he requests such association to pay him weekly.' Section 150 provides that 'An assignment of future wages payable weekly under section one hundred and forty-eight shall not be valid if made to the person from whom such wages are to become due or to any person on his behalf, or if made or procured to be made to another person for the purpose of relieving the employer from the obligation to pay weekly.' Section 148 provides, 'No person shall by a special contract with an employee or by any other means exempt himself from this section or from section one hundred and fifty.'

Turning to the legislative history, we note that St.1879, c. 128, provided that all cities 'pay, at intervals not exceeding seven days, all laborers who are employed by them at a rate of wages not exceeding two dollars a day, if such payment shall be demanded.' Statute 1886, c. 87, was entitled 'An Act to provide for the weekly payment of wages by corporations.' It provided that corporations in enumerated categories 'pay weekly each and every employee engaged in its business the wages earned by such employee to within six days of the date of said payment * * *.'

On April 15, 1895, the House of Representatives asked the Justices of this court: 'Is it within the constitutional power of the legislature to extend the application of the present law, relative to the weekly payment of wages by corporations, to private individuals and partnerships, as provided in the bill entitled 'An act relative to the weekly payment of wages,' now pending before the general court?' Opinion of the Justices, 163 Mass. 589, 40 N.E. 713, 28 L.R.A. 344. The Justices replied (163 Mass. at page 596, 40 N.E. at page 716), '* * * [W]e cannot say that a statute requiring manufacturers to pay the wages of their employes weekly is not one which the general court has the constitutional power to pass * * *.' Thereafter the General Court enacted St.1895, c. 438, entitled 'An Act relative to the weekly payment of wages.' This extended to certain persons and partnerships St.1894, c. 508, §§ 51 to 54, that is, the 'weekly payment' statute in its then form. The extending statute referred to §§ 51 to 54 as 'relative to the weekly payment of wages by corporations.'

The General Court, in most of the titles of the many amending enactments ¹ since St.1886, c. 87, has affirmed that the statute deals with the 'weekly payment of wages.' Marginal subtitles of several amending statutes ² and of the several codifications ³ refer to 'weekly payment' or make equivalent reference and may be taken to reflect the contemporaneous view of what the statute was about.

Doubtless the legislation in its early form was enacted primarily to prevent unreasonable detention of wages. See Governor Robinson, address to the Legislature, Legislative Documents, Senate, 1885, No. 1, pp. 37-38; Commonwealth v. New York Cent. & H. R. R. R., 206 Mass. 417, 423-424, 92 N.E. 766, 770 ('prompt payment of their wages'). But it does not follow that a practice which avoids such detention is valid. The cure which the Legislature prescribed for the evil noted was to require regular and frequent payment. The prescribed frequency was 'weekly.' Payment long in arrears could mean, as the brief for the commissioner notes, dissipation on payday of a large part of the accumulated sums by irresponsible employees with consequent adverse effect on family and community. The statutory remedy met this possible evil, and it is inconsequential that regular payment in advance was probably unheard of in 1886.

This court, in three decisions of other issues, has described the statute as providing weekly payment. Mutual Loan Co. v. Martell, 200 Mass. 482, 485, 86...