Robertson v. Opequon Motors, Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. 25331.,25331.
• Citation: 205 W.Va. 560,519 S.E.2d 843
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Lucille ROBERTSON and Kelly Gleockler, Plaintiffs Below, Appellees, v. OPEQUON MOTORS, INC., A West Virginia Corporation; and Ellen Parsons, Individually and as President of Defendant Corporation, Defendants Below, Appellants.

519 S.E.2d 843

205 W.Va. 560

Lucille ROBERTSON and Kelly Gleockler, Plaintiffs Below, Appellees, v. OPEQUON MOTORS, INC., A West Virginia Corporation; and Ellen Parsons, Individually and as President of Defendant Corporation, Defendants Below, Appellants.

No. 25331.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted January 26, 1999.

Decided June 17, 1999.

David M. Hammer, Esquire, Robert J. Schiavoni, Esquire, Hammer, Ferretti & Schiavoni, Martinsburg, West Virginia, Attorneys for Appellees.

Fred F. Holroyd, Esquire, Tom Price, Esquire, Holroyd, Yost & Evans, Charleston, West Virginia, Attorneys for Appellants.

PER CURIAM:

The appellant and defendant below, Opequon Motors, Inc., is a car dealership located in Martinsburg, West Virginia, selling new and used vehicles to the general public. The appellant and defendant below, Ellen Parsons, is the president and majority owner of the dealership.¹ Opequon Motors hired salespeople to sell its vehicles and agreed to compensate these salespeople by means of a commission on the sale of each vehicle. These commissioned salespeople are the appellees, plaintiffs below, who brought suit for violations of West Virginia Code ß 21-5-1 et seq., also known as the Wage Payment and Collection Act ("the Act"). The plaintiffs prevailed on their claims, and for reasons set forth below, we affirm.

I. Factual Background

The appellees, plaintiffs below, filed suit in March of 1996, complaining that Opequon Motors and Mrs. Parsons had engaged in illegal pay practices that violated the Act. The Circuit Court of Berkeley County certified the employees' claim as a class action on June 4, 1997, and conducted a jury trial in August of 1997.

At trial, the court considered the employees' charges, which may be summarized as two tort counts and five counts arising under the Act. The counts asserted under the Act, discussed in greater detail, infra, consisted of three involving the way in which the dealership calculated commissions, one concerning vacation pay, and one concerning holiday pay.

In the counts concerning the calculation of commissions, the employees argued that the dealership illegally reduced the amounts payable to the employees in three distinct ways: (1) by making deductions for repairs made to a vehicle after a sale; (2) by making deductions for costs associated with a customer's use of a credit card when purchasing a vehicle; and (3) by making arbitrary additions to the dealership's alleged "cost" of a vehicle, thereby reducing the "profit" on which the employees' commissions were calculated.

The court below directed a verdict in favor of the dealership on the tort claims and denied the employees' attempt to amend their complaint at trial to include a charge of fraud, but directed a verdict in favor of the employees on the counts involving repair costs, credit card costs, and vacation pay.² The court then bifurcated the issues of liability and damages, and allowed the jury to consider the dealership's liability on the remaining counts, which concerned the calculation of the "profit" on each vehicle and the matter of holiday pay. The jury found in favor of the employees on each of these counts.

The judge ordered the appointment of a special master to determine the exact amount of damages owed to each plaintiff, and ordered the defendants to pay the plaintiffs' attorneys' fees and costs. The defendants made a timely motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial. The judge denied this motion, and defendants now appeal.

II. Standard of Review

Today litigants should employ the phrase "judgment as a matter of law" in place of the phrases "directed verdict" and "judgment notwithstanding the verdict." For the sake of consistency, and because the rulings below occurred before the amendment of Rule 50 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure,³ this opinion makes use of the old terminology. Because the case sub judice involves the lower court's rulings on both motions for directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, we are faced with seemingly divergent standards of review.

We first address the standard for the counts presented to the jury. Litigants have frequently asked this Court to review the denial of motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict,⁴ and this Court has made clear that such litigants bear a strong burden when seeking to overturn the judgment of a trial court.

In reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, it is not the task of the appellate court reviewing facts to determine how it would have ruled on the evidence presented. Its task is to determine whether the evidence was such that a reasonable trier of fact might have reached the decision below. Thus, in ruling on a motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. If on review, the evidence is shown to be legally insufficient to sustain the verdict, it is the obligation of this Court to reverse the circuit court and to order judgment for the appellant.

Syllabus Point 1, Mildred L.M. v. John O.F., 192 W.Va. 345, 452 S.E.2d 436 (1994). See also, Barefoot v. Sundale Nursing Home, 193 W.Va. 475, 457 S.E.2d 152 (1995)

; Alkire v. First National Bank of Parsons, 197 W.Va. 122, 475 S.E.2d 122 (1996); Dodrill v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 201 W.Va. 1, 491 S.E.2d 1 (1996); Tudor v. Charleston Area Medical Center, Inc., 203 W.Va. 111, 506 S.E.2d 554 (1997).

However, we do not reach that conclusion in our review of the case below. We find that the plaintiffs met their burden. As stated in Barefoot, supra, a circuit court must examine the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, and may grant a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict only if "it determines the evidence could lead a reasonable person to only one conclusion favorable to the movant." Barefoot v. Sundale Nursing Home, 193 W.Va. 475, 482, 457 S.E.2d 152, 159 (1995)(citing Powell v. Time Ins. Co., 181 W.Va. 289, 382 S.E.2d 342 (1989)). We went on to state in Barefoot that:

Thus, a circuit court's denial of a motion under Rule 50 of the Rules of Civil Procedure will be reversed only if the facts and inferences point so strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of the movant that a reasonable jury could not reach a verdict against the movant.

Barefoot v. Sundale Nursing Home, id.

As set forth with greater particularity, infra, we find that the defendants, the movants in the case below, fell short of this exacting standard.

But before addressing the jury's verdict, we must discuss the standard of review appropriate for a directed verdict at the time the case before us was decided. In addition to the jury's determination, the trial court directed a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs on three counts, and denied the defendants' motions for directed verdict on other counts.

Although we have articulated somewhat different standards of review for motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict as opposed to motions for directed verdict,⁵ we have recently noted a narrowing of that distinction. In footnote six of Barefoot we explained:

The standard for granting a judgment notwithstanding the verdict is the same as for a directed verdict, i.e., after considering the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, only one reasonable verdict is possible. Huffman v. Appalachian Power Co., 187 W.Va. 1, 415 S.E.2d 145 (1991); Fleming James, Jr., Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., & John Leubsdorf, Civil Procedure ß 7.30 at 406-07 (4th ed.1992). Under this standard, a judgment notwithstanding the verdict should be denied if the evidence is conflicting or is insufficient to establish the movant's case.

Barefoot v. Sundale Nursing Home, note 6, 193 W.Va. 475, 481-82, 457 S.E.2d 152, 158-59 (1995).

We also discussed the convergence of these two standards of review in Dodrill v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 201 W.Va. 1, 491 S.E.2d 1 (1996). After a discussion of motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and a citation to the first syllabus point of Mildred L.M. v. John O.F., 192 W.Va. 345, 452 S.E.2d 436 (1994), supra, we stated that "[e]ssentially, the same rules apply where motions for a directed verdict are implicated." Dodrill at 9, 491 S.E.2d at 9. We confirmed this sentiment with the same language in Tudor v. Charleston Area Medical Center, Inc., 203 W.Va. 111, 122, 506 S.E.2d 554, 565 (1997).

Bearing in mind the fast-disappearing distinction between motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and motions for directed verdict, we turn to the decision below.

III. The Jury Verdict

The two counts presented to the jury were based upon violations of the Act. This Court has made clear that the Wage Payment and Collection Act was created for the benefit of employees, who may often be at a disadvantage when dealing with their employers. "The West Virginia Wage Payment and Collection Act is remedial legislation designed to protect working people and assist them in the collection of compensation wrongly withheld." Syl. Pt. 3, Jones v. Tri-County Growers, Inc., 179 W.Va. 218, 366 S.E.2d 726 (1988)(citing Syllabus, Mullins v. Venable, 171 W.Va. 92, 297 S.E.2d 866 (1982)).

Equally clear is the right of an employee to recover costs, if he or she prevails under the Act. "An employee who succeeds in enforcing a claim under W. Va.Code Chapter 21, article 5 should ordinarily recover costs, including reasonable attorney fees unless special circumstances render such an award unjust." Syl. Pt. 3 Farley v. Zapata Coal Corp., 167 W.Va. 630, 281 S.E.2d 238 (1981).

A. Holiday Pay

One question posed to the jury was whether or not the dealership's failure to pay holiday pay to its employees violated the Act. The dealership's employment policy listed various days that would be observed as holidays, when the employees could stay home, but would...