Tag: Wage Payment and Collection Act

No Future Damages Allowed in Wage Payment and Collection Act Claim – IL 2d Dist.

Eakins v. Hanna Cylinders, LLC, 2015 IL App (2d) 140944 is the third in a trio of recent Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, 820 ILCS 115/1 et seq., (“Wage Act”) cases that address an employee’s rights to recover future damages after an employer prematurely terminates a multi-year contract.

(The other two cases – Majmundar v. House of Spices (India), Inc., 2013 IL App (1st) 130292 and Elsener v. Brown, 2013 IL App (2d) 120209 are summarized here and here.)

The Eakins plaintiff sued after he was fired 14 months into a 24-month contract to serve as a plant manager for the industrial company defendant.  The employment contract was silent on grounds for termination.  The plaintiff sought as damages, compensation for the ten month remaining on the employment contract under a breach of contract theory and he joined a Wage Act claim.  The trial court entered summary judgment for the defendant on both claims and the plaintiff appealed.

Held: Breach of contract judgment reversed; Wage Act judgment for employer affirmed.

Q: Why?

A: The appeals court reversed the breach of contract judgment for the defendant employer.  In Illinois, an employment agreement with no fixed duration can be ended at the will of either party.  The contract here was clearly for a fixed term, 24 months, and so wasn’t at will.  By firing the plaintiff 14 months into the contract term, the defendant breached.

The court rejected defendant’s argument that the plaintiff’s failure to meet certain performance metrics (e.g. keep costs down, grow market share, meet sales quotas, etc.) justified defendant’s premature termination of the plaintiff.  The court found that since the contract didn’t specify poor performance (as opposed to outright failure to perform – e.g. by not showing up to work) as a ground for contractual cancellation, the defendant breached by firing plaintiff before the 24 months was up.

Otherwise, according to the court, any employer could transmute a fixed-term contract into an at-will one by claiming the employee didn’t meet the employer’s performance requirements.  The court remanded to the lower court so it could decide plaintiff’s money damages. (¶¶ 23-29).

The court did affirm judgment for the defendant on the Wage Act claim though.  Looking to Majmundar for guidance, the court held that unpaid future compensations coming due under an untimely ended employment contract doesn’t qualify as “final compensation” under the Wage Act.  The reason for this is that once an employee is fired, he no longer performs any services for the employer.  So the employer isn’t receiving anything of value from the employee to support an obligation to make future payments. (¶¶ 31-32).

Take-aways:

Where a contract is for a fixed term and doesn’t provide for “for cause” firing or otherwise spell out grounds for termination, the contract will be enforced as written in the employee’s favor and his failure to meet an employer’s subjective work standards won’t constitute a basis for nullifying the contract;

Future payments due under a fixed-term contract aren’t considered final compensation under the Wage Act since there is no reciprocal exchange (services for wages) once an employee is fired;

Procedurally, the case makes clear that the denial of a summary judgment motion is appealable so long as there are cross-motions for summary judgment filed and the disposition of those motions resolves all issues in a given case.

 

Corporate Officer Liability Under The Illinois Wage Payment And Collection Act

The Illinois’ Wage Payment and Collection Act, 820 ILCS 115/1 et seq. (the “Act”) provides some strong recourse to an employee who isn’t paid by his employer.

Not only can a corporate employer be liable to the employee claimant, but so can individual corporate officers in some cases. See Act, ss. 2, 13.  In addition, Act Section 14 outlaws retaliation against an employee who makes a claims under the Act.

Section 5 of the Act requires an employer to pay a separated employee final compensation no later than the next regularly scheduled payday. 

The Act defines “employer” variously as (1) any individual or business entity that acts directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee and (2) as an officer of a corporation or agents of an employer who knowingly permit the employer to violate the Act.   820 ILCS 115/2, 13.

Act Section 2 binds an employer not only for its own failure to pay employee wages but also for violations committed by its agents (i.e. supervisors).  

 Section 13 imposes personal liability on an officer or agent of an employer who knowingly permits an Act violation. 

Section 13 liability applies only to corporate “decision-makers” who occupy supervisory positions at a company and have a role in setting work policy and can dictate rate of pay and working conditions.

A corporate officer can defend a personal liability Act claim by asserting he relied on corporate financial documents in failing to pay or “shorting” an employee.

Section 14 is the Act’s anti-retaliation section.  It provides that an employee can recover damages where an employer “unlawfully retaliates” him. 820 ILCS 115/14(c). 

Unlawful retaliation means simply that an employer fired or discriminated against an employee who complained that he hasn’t been paid.

A claimant can show retaliation under the Act where he makes a demand for unpaid compensation and is fired in response. 

Afterwords: Collection and employment litigators should have a working knowledge of the various sections of the Act given its prevalence in the published case law.

 

 

Court Slashes $25K From $30K Attorneys Fees Request Where Plaintiff Loses Most Claims (ND IL)

timesheet

After winning one out of nine claims, the plaintiff – a recently fired loan officer – sued to recover about $30K in attorneys’ fees under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (IWPCA) from his former employer. 

Awarding the plaintiff just a fraction (just over $5K) of his claimed fees, the Northern District in Palar v. Blackhawk Bancorporation, 2014 WL 4087436 (N.D.Ill. 2014), provides a gloss on the factors a court considers when assessing attorneys’ fees.  The key principles:

 – the lodestar method (hours worked times the hourly rate) is the proper framework for analyzing fees in a IWPCA claim;

– a court may increase or decrease a lodestar figure to reflect multiple factors including (i) the complexity of the legal issues involved, (ii) the degree of success obtained, (iii) the public interest advanced by the suit);

– the key inquiry is whether the fees are reasonable in relation to the difficulty, stakes and outcome of the case;

– a court shouldn’t eyeball a fee request and chop it down based on arbitrary decisions though: the court must provide a clear, concise explanation for any fee reduction;

– an attorneys’ reasonable hourly rate should reflect the market rate: the rate lawyers of similar ability and experience charge in a given community;

– “market rate” is presumably the attorney’s actual billing rate for comparable work;

– if the attorney has no bills for comparable work to show the court, the attorney may instead (a) submit supporting affidavits from similarly experienced attorneys attesting to the rates they charge clients for similar work, or (b) submit evidence of fee awards the attorney has received in similar cases;

– once the fee-seeking attorney makes this market rate showing, the burden shifts to the opponent to demonstrate why the Court should lower the rate;

(**4-5).

The Court then set down the governing rules that apply when a plaintiff wins some claims and loses others; and how that impacts the fee award calculus:

– a party may not recover fees for hours spent on unsuccessful claims;

– where the successful and unsuccessful claims involve a common core of facts and are based on related legal theories, time spent on losing claims may be compensable: litigants should be penalized for pursuing multiple and alternative avenues of relief;

– when reducing a fee award based on certain unsuccessful claims, the court should identify specific hours to be eliminated;

– attorneys can recover fees incurred in litigating the fee award those fee petition fees must not be disproportionate to the fees spent on litigating the merits;

– the Court should consider whether hours spent on the fee request bear a rational relationship to the hours spent on the merits of the case;

– the Seventh Circuit recognizes 15 minutes per hour ratio of fee hours vs. merits hours as excessive (so 1 hour on fee issue for 4 hours on merits would be disproportionate).

(*5).

With these guideposts in mind,  the Court reduced plaintiff’s claimed fees by deducting (a) fees spent on unsuccessful and unrelated (to the IWPCA count) claims; and (b) fees incurred litigating the fees dispute. 

The combined reductions amounted to almost $25K out of the $30K plaintiff claimed in his fee petition.  The Court held that a $5K fee award on final compensation of about $1,500 was justified given the IWPCA’s mandatory fee provision and stated policy of deterring employers from refusing to pay separated employees’ wages.

Afterwords:

There is no precise formula governing fee awards.   The court will consider the amount claimed versus the fees sought and whether they are congruent with those figures. 

This case also illustrates that a court will look at how many claims the plaintiff won and lost in the same case when fashioning a fee award.