The Massachusetts Wage Act sets strict deadlines as to when your employer must pay your earned wages. The Act requires that employers pay their employees earned wages within six or seven days of the pay period in which the wages are earned, with certain exceptions. When an employer terminates an employee, the Wage Act also requires that it pay all wages in full on the day of discharge. You can read the full text of the statute here: General Law – Part I, Title XXI, Chapter 149, Section 148.
If an employer fails to pay wages within the deadlines set by the Wage Act, M.G.L. c. 149, § 148, the affected employee may bring a claim in court to recover damages and lost wages. If the employee wins on that claim, the employee “shall be awarded treble damages,” as well as reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. See M.G.L. c. 149, § 150. In other words, if an employee proves in court that her employer failed to pay her $1,000.00 in earned wages, in violation of Wage Act, M.G.L. c. 149, § 148, she will be awarded $3,000.00 (three times that amount), as damages for the lost wages.
But what if the employer eventually pays the employee her $1,000.00 in earned wages—but after the statutory deadline for payment? In other words: how late is too late?
In Reuter v. City of Methuen, 489 Mass. 465 (2022), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that earned wages paid to an employee just three weeks after the statutory deadline for payment (but before the employee sued), still counted as “lost” wages and that the employee should be awarded treble damages in the amount of the late payment.
A recent decision in the Massachusetts federal district court case, Volkan Turgut v. Hitachi Rail STS USA, Inc., Civ. A. No. 24-CV-10660-AK (D. Mass.), sheds further light on the question of: how late is too late? The plaintiff in that case is challenging his employer’s alleged practice of regularly paying all its Massachusetts employees’ earned wages one day later than required by the Wage Act. The employer moved to dismiss the case, causing District Judge Angel Kelley, to examine the question: “does one day make a difference?” Judge Kelley’s decision reviews the history and purpose of the Act, which “was designed to provide protections for employees by requiring the prompt payment of wages,” and discusses guidance from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, on the deadlines for timely wage payments, which can be found here Pay and recordkeeping | Mass.gov. Ultimately, recognizing the importance of timely wage payments, Judge Kelley denied the employer’s motion to dismiss, and opined that payment even one day late matters:
[T]o some, the difference could mean a day earlier parents can purchase groceries; or a student’s ability to pay rent on time; or the faster a patient can pay for a medical procedure. This Court answers the question posed to it in the affirmative: a day matters for the many people in this Commonwealth who live paycheck to paycheck.
The Supreme Judicial Court agrees, “[t]he statute leaves no wiggle room” when it comes to the deadlines it sets for payment of wages. 489 Mass. at 470. Because the Wage Act is a strict liability statute, the reason the employer paid its employees their earned wages late is also irrelevant to establishing a violation and seeking an award of treble damages. In the words of the Court, Wage Act requires “employers rather than employees [] bear the costs of such delay and mistakes, honest or not.” Id. at 471.
The Massachusetts Wage Act, as supported by these decisions, treats the late payment of wages as a strict line. This is sensible given the harm late payment can cause to someone just making ends meet, and the various harms a permissive culture of late wage payment would wreak. If you have been paid your earned wages late within the past three years, you may have a claim for treble damages