On April 4, 2022, in Reuter v. City of Methuen, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) held that employers are strictly liable for treble damages for making late wage payments, even when an employee has not yet filed suit asserting a wage claim. In so holding, the SJC rejected an often-cited trial court decision, Dobin v. CIOview Corp., which employers had long relied upon to correct pre-suit late wage payments by paying unpaid amounts in full, with trebled interest.
Plaintiff Beth Reuter was discharged for misconduct by her employer, the City of Methuen. At the time of her employment termination, Reuter had accrued $8,952.15 of unused vacation time. When the city terminated her employment, it failed to pay Reuter her accrued vacation time; instead, it paid her the full amount approximately three weeks later. The city also paid Reuter an additional $185.42, which represented the trebled interest for the three weeks between the employment termination and when the city paid the accrued vacation time.
Despite the city’s pre-suit payment of both Reuter’s unpaid, accrued vacation time and trebled interest, the SJC held that the “late payments constitute clear violations of the statute.” Quoting the Massachusetts Wage Act, the SJC explained that under section 148 of the statute “any employee discharged from employment … shall be paid in full on the day of his discharge.” The court reasoned that delays in issuing an employee’s final...
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