Skip to Content
In an article published on 10/28/24 in Law360, Segal McCambridge Shareholder Michael R. Luchsinger and Associate Ashley White discuss a recent court case in Massachusetts, Nunez v. Syncsort, Inc., where the plaintiff sought damages for compensation, claiming his former employer failed to pay his full bonus following his termination. Nunez received the first installment of a “retention bonus” on November 30, 2020, but he was officially terminated on February 18, 2021, without cause, and his employer did not pay the second installment. Nunez filed his complaint on February 25, 2021, alleging failure under the Massachusetts Wage Act, and the second installment was paid on February 26, 2021.
“Cross-motions for summary judgment were both denied, but that decision as to the defendant’s motion for summary judgment was reversed following reconsideration,” write Luchsinger and White, noting that summary judgment was affirmed on appeal by applying a narrow interpretation of what qualified as “wages” under the Massachusetts Wage Act. “The Court noted that the state’s wage act does not provide an explicit definition of ‘wages,’ and found that in prior cases, a monetary award that was discretionary or contingent was held to not constitute wages.”
They note that the characterization of a payment as discretionary or contingent has often decided wage cases in favor of employers in Massachusetts and that similar Massachusetts cases establish a strict interpretation of the state’s Wage Act, allowing it to be the basis for a cause of action only in instances where wages are “definitely determined and due and payable to the employee.”
“Employers in any state should certainly be cognizant of what their policies require them to pay at the time of separation,” write Luchsinger and White. “In the case of Nunez, reasonable minds could certainly have disagreed on whether the second installment was ‘guaranteed’ to the plaintiff as he was technically employed on February 18, 2021, and not terminated for cause. Likewise, these cases are also instructive in that terms such as ‘wages,’ ‘bonuses,’ and ‘discretionary’ should not be assumed to hold our colloquial definitions when it comes to litigation.”
Read the story in full; click here (subscriber-based).
