[co-author: Alex Mastorides]
On September 15, 2025, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated ruling in By the Rockies v. Perez, clarifying that the statute of limitations for claims under the state’s Minimum Wage Act is two years, or three years for a willful violation. This employer-friendly ruling reversed a Colorado Court of Appeals decision holding that plaintiffs have six years to bring such a claim.
Plaintiff Samuel Perez was an employee of By the Rockies (BTR) from 2016 to 2017. He alleged that BTR violated Colorado’s Minimum Wage Act, C.R.S. § 8-6-118, by failing to provide meal and rest breaks during shifts. Perez left BTR in 2017 but did not file his claim until 2022—five years after the alleged Minimum Wage Act violations occurred. BTR moved to dismiss the claims, arguing the claims were time barred.
Although the text of Colorado’s Minimum Wage Act contains no explicit statute of limitations, the Colorado Wage Claim Act (C.R.S. § 8-4-122), which applies to similar Colorado wage claims, has a statute of limitations that mirrors the statute of limitations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)—i.e., two years, or three years for a willful violation. See 29 U.S.C. § 255(a). BTR argued the court should adopt the Wage Claim Act’s statute of limitations, while Perez argued that the six-year default statute of limitations period for claims involving a “liquidated debt or an unliquidated, determinable amount of money” (C.R.S. § 13-80-103.5(1)(a)) applied....
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