A Massachusetts federal court has ruled that a failure to pay overtime compensation makes an employer liable under the Massachusetts Wage Act in the same manner—treble damages, attorneys’ fees and interest—as the failure to pay regular compensation. In Lambirth v. Advanced Auto, Inc., 2015 WL 6043710 (October 15, 2015) an automotive technician sued the employer after he was fired, claiming that there were many weeks where he worked over 40 hours but did not get time and a half, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The employer moved to dismiss the Wage Act claim, arguing that M.G.L. c. 151, § 1A, the so-called “Fair Minimum Wage Act” (“FMWA”), which requires employers to pay time and a half for hours worked in excess of forty hours per week, contained an exemption for a “garageman.” The Plaintiff’s suit did not include a claim under c. 151, § 1A, but the Employer argued that it was not the Legislature’s intent under the Wage Act to award treble damages for overtime to a position excluded by the Massachusetts statute.

The Court observed that “wage” is not defined in the Wage Act except to state that the definition includes holiday or vacation payments under an agreement, but that the Black’s Law Dictionary definition of “wage” is “

[p]ayment for labor or services, usu[ally] based on time worked…. Wages include every form of remuneration payable for a given period to an individual for personal services, including salaries, commissions, vacation pay, bonuses…tips, and any similar advantage received from the employer.” The Court went on to state that the legislative history of the statute showed an intent to prevent the unreasonable detention of wages and, even if state law exempted the Plaintiff’s position from its overtime provisions, federal overtime law did not. Therefore, the Court opined, “[T]here is nothing in the language of the statute or the plain meaning of its terms to suggest that it does not encompass overtime differential to which an employee is entitled under federal law….The above-cited decisions, and a close reading of the Wage Act, lead to the conclusion that the statute applies to the untimely payment of all wages to which an employee is entitled under either state or federal law.”