Minnesota restores substance to key employment law
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recently signed into law amendments to the Minnesota Payment of Wages Act to confirm that the statute enables employees to recover unpaid compensation – as well as statutory penalties, attorney’s fees, and litigation costs – which employees have earned but remain unpaid. The amendments make clear that the legal obligation to pay, and therefore the ability to recover, is established “by law, including any applicable statute, regulation, rule, ordinance, government resolution or policy, contract, or other legal authority.” Minn. Stat. § 181. 13(a), as amended; Minn. Stat. § 181.14, Subd. 1(a), as amended. Notably, the duty to pay, and the ability to recover, can be demonstrated by contracts to which employees are not parties – such as contracts between employers and the government. Minn. Stat. § 181.13(a), as amended; Minn. Stat. § 181.14, Subd. 2, as amended.
A unanimous Minnesota House of Representatives and a nearly unanimous Minnesota Senate voted in favor of these vital amendments. Such virtual unanimity in times of increasing partisanship is all the more striking because the legislative action effectively overruled a recent opinion issued by 4 Justices of the Minnesota Supreme Court. In Caldas v. Affordable Granite & Stone, Inc., 820 N.W.2d 826 (2012), the 4-Justice majority essentially held that the Minnesota Payment of Wages Act did not provide a basis to recover earned, but unpaid, compensation through court action. The 4 Justices reached this conclusion despite the fact that, as the State of Minnesota confirmed on page 5 of its amicus curiae submissions to the Minnesota Supreme Court, for nearly a century the Minnesota Payment of Wages Act has “provided employees with an independent cause of action to bring claims to recover unpaid wages.” The 4 Justices also evidently overlooked the submissions of amici curiae business associations, which warned on page 4 of their Minnesota Supreme Court submissions about the adverse impact of not holding the employer in the case accountable: “all other contractors will be forced to choose between abiding by the law or violating it to remain competitive.”
This is an important victory for employees across Minnesota as well as for the integrity of the commercial regime and the rule of law generally. Going forward, all Minnesotans should expect that employers will follow the law. If a particular employer does not do so, advocates for employees stand at the ready to hold that employer accountable.
