KENNETH WATTS and GAVIE WOFFORD, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. ADDO MANAGEMENT, L.L.C., BDJ TRUCKING CO., ADRIAN SASCA, Individually, and SENAD MUJKIC, Individually, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 1-17-0201
Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Third Division
January 24, 2018
2018 IL App (1st) 170201
Hon. Patricia S. Spratt, Judge, presiding.
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County, No. 2015-L-9836. Judgment Reversed and remanded.
Ryan A. Hagerty and Heidi B. Parker, of Asher Gittler & D‘Alba, Ltd., of Chicago, for appellants.
Lisa K. Lange, of Law Offices of Lisa K. Lange, of Chicago, for appellees ADDO Management, L.L.C., and Adrian Sasca.
Jerome G. Silbert, P.C., of Chicago, for other appellees.
JUSTICE
Presiding Justice Cobbs and Justice Howse concurred in the judgment and opinion.
OPINION
¶ 1 The plaintiffs, Kenneth Watts and Gavie Wofford, appeal from the circuit court‘s order dismissing their second amended complaint pursuant to
I. BACKGROUND
¶ 2 On September 28, 2015, the plaintiffs filed a four-count complaint against the defendants, ADDO Management, L.L.C. (ADDO), BDJ Trucking Company (BDJ), Adrian Sasca, and Senad Mujkic. After that, the plaintiffs amended their complaint twice. The second amended complaint alleged (1) violations of the Wage Act (
¶ 3 In their second amended complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that they were residents of Illinois and, at all relevant times, “employees” of the defendants, as that term is defined under
¶ 4 The plaintiffs, who are residents of Illinois, alleged that they drove trucks operated
¶ 5 The plaintiffs further alleged that between March 20 and April 10, 2015, they made a total of three round trips to Portland, Oregon, for the defendants, driving 12,714 miles, for which they should have received $2924.22 in payment. The plaintiffs contended that they did not receive these “wages,” from either ADDO or BDJ, as a result of which the plaintiff, Wofford, resigned.
¶ 6 The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants qualified as “employers” under the Wage Act (see
¶ 7 The defendants Sasca and ADDO filed a combined
¶ 8 The trial court granted the defendants’
II. ANALYSIS
¶ 9 It is axiomatic that a
¶ 10 The purpose of the Wage Act is to provide Illinois employees with a cause of action for the timely and complete payment of earned wages or final compensation. Majmudar v. House of Spices (India), Inc., 2013 IL App (1st) 130292, ¶ 11 (citing Andrews v. Kowa Printing Corp., 351 Ill. App. 3d 668, 675 (2004), aff‘d, 217 Ill. 2d 101 (2005), People ex rel. Department of Labor v. Tri State Tours, Inc., 342 Ill. App. 3d 842, 845 (2003), and Khan v. Van Remmen, Inc., 325 Ill. App. 3d 49, 59 (2001)); see also Armstrong v. Hedlund Corp., 316 Ill. App. 3d 1097, 1107 (2000) (the Wage Act‘s purpose is “to insure the prompt and full payment of wages due workers at the time of separation from employment, either by discharge, layoff or quitting“); Glass v. Kemper Corp., 133 F.3d 999, 1000 (7th Cir. 1998) (the Wage Act‘s “evident purpose is to protect employees in Illinois from being stiffed by their employers” (emphasis omitted)).
¶ 12 To state a claim under the Wage Act, a plaintiff must plead that (1) he had an employment agreement with the employer that required the payment of wages or final compensation and (2) the defendants were employers under the Wage Act. See Landers-Scelfo v. Corporate Office Systems, Inc., 356 Ill. App. 3d 1060, 1067 (2005) (citing
“any individual, partnership, association, corporation, limited liability company, business trust, employment and labor placement agencies where wage payments are made directly or indirectly by the agency or business for work undertaken by employees under hire to a third party pursuant to a contract between the business or agency with the third party, or any person or group of persons acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee, for which one or more persons is gainfully employed.”
820 ILCS 115/2 (West 2014) .
¶ 13 Our courts have previously held that because of the deliberate breadth of the Wage Act‘s definition of “employer,” the “necessity to plead that a defendant is an employer does not add any requirement beyond what is necessary to plead the existence of an employment agreement.” Landers-Scelfo, 356 Ill. App. 3d at 1067. Because such an agreement can be “entirely implicit,” to plead its existence, a plaintiff need only allege that “an entity paid a worker according to a demonstrable formula for work done” so as to “raise an inference that the entity and the worker had an employment agreement that embodied the formula.” Landers-Scelfo, 356 Ill. App. 3d at 1067.
¶ 14 On appeal, the plaintiffs contend the trial court erred when it held that they failed to state a cause of action under the Wage Act because the majority of the work they performed was not performed inside Illinois. The plaintiffs contend that the Wage Act applies to all Illinois employers and employees, regardless of how much of the employee‘s work is performed inside this state. In support, they point out that both the plain language of the statute and the recently amended administrative regulations of the Illinois Department of Labor place no limitation on the amount of work that an Illinois employee must perform within the state so as avail himself of the Wage Act‘s protections. For the reasons that follow, we agree.
¶ 15 The primary objective of statutory construction is to give effect to the true intent of the legislature. People v. Fort, 2017 IL 118966, ¶ 20. Because legislative intent is best determined from the language of the statute itself, where the language is plain and unambiguous, it must be applied without resort to other aids of construction, and we may not read into it exceptions, limitations, or other conditions. Fort, 2017 IL 118966, ¶ 20. “Where a statute is ambiguous, however, courts will give substantial weight and deference to an interpretation by the
¶ 16 The Wage Act contains no provision stating that a plaintiff must perform a certain amount of work in Illinois in order to be covered under the Wage Act. Instead, section 1 only states that the Wage Act applies to “all employers and employees in this State.”
¶ 17 Under the Wage Act, the Director of Labor is authorized to “promulgate rules and regulations necessary to administer and enforce the provision of this Act.”
¶ 18 However, in 2014, the agency‘s regulations were amended, eliminating any reference to the amount of work required to be performed in Illinois before the Wage Act could be applied, and explicitly acknowledging that work performed outside of Illinois could be protected under the Wage Act. See
“(a) The phrase ‘in this State’ as used in the Act does not exclude entities physically situated outside the State of Illinois. An employer or employee, to be ‘in this State,’ need not have residency in this State. An officer or agent need not be physically present in order to be regarded as ‘in this State’ for purposes of jurisdiction under the Act.
(b) The Department will assert jurisdiction over a claim when the work was performed in Illinois for an Illinois employer, regardless of where the employee resides.
(c) The Department will assert jurisdiction over a claim when the work was performed in Illinois for an employer that may have residency outside the State if the employer has sufficient contacts in the State, such as performing substantial business in the State, maintaining a principal place of business in
the State, marketing its services in the State or maintaining a registered agent within the State. (d) If the work is performed outside the State of Illinois, the employer must be located in Illinois in order for the Department to assert jurisdiction over the claim.
(e) The Department will exercise personal jurisdiction over a nonresident individual when the person is an officer, director or agent of a corporation organized under Illinois law having a principal place of business or presence in the State and when there are sufficient contacts within the State.” (Emphasis added.)
56 Ill. Adm. Code 300.440 (2014) .
¶ 19 Under the aforementioned regulations, it is clear that the Wage Act‘s application is not limited to any specific quantum of work performed in Illinois but, in fact, may apply in certain circumstances even where all of the work is performed outside of this state.
¶ 20 In coming to this decision, we have considered but are unpersuaded by the defendants’ citation to a passage on the Department of Labor‘s website, which they purport affirmatively establishes that the plaintiffs have no cause of action under the Wage Act. The passage is part of the “Wage Payment and Collection Act F[requently] A[sked] Q[uestions]” section (FAQ section) and, under the question “Who is covered by the Wage Payment and Collection Act,” states, in pertinent part: “The work has to be performed in Illinois for an employee to make a claim under the Act. For example, a truck driver that lives in Illinois but travels throughout the United States to perform their work is likely not covered by the Act.” Wage Payment and Collection Act FAQ, Illinois Department of Labor, https://www.illinois.gov/idol/FAQs/Pages/wage-payment-faq.aspx#qst2 (last visited Mar. 26 (2018)).
¶ 21 Contrary to the defendants’ assertion, this single passage from the website‘s FAQ section is hardly dispositive. The FAQ section provides only a cursory explanation of the applicability of the Wage Act to lay persons, and does not detail every scenario contemplated under the Wage Act and interpreted by the agency‘s clear and detailed regulations. As such, to the extent that the website‘s FAQ section conflicts with the agency‘s regulations, the agency‘s regulations control, and the website does not apply. What is more, the passage from the website cited to by the defendants nowhere affirmatively provides that truck drivers performing work outside of Illinois are never covered under the Wage Act; rather it states that such drivers are “likely” not covered under the Wage Act. The website provides no guidance as to the type or amount of work that would have to be performed in Illinois for the truck drivers to be more “likely” to avail themselves of the protections of the Wage Act. Accordingly, we find the defendants’ citation to the website unavailing and instead rely on the agency‘s comprehensive and explicit regulations. Under those regulations, we find that the Wage Act‘s applicability does not involve the consideration of the percentage of work performed by Illinois employees inside Illinois.
¶ 22 Since we have determined that the trial court‘s decision was made on an improper basis, we must nonetheless consider whether the plaintiffs’ second amended complaint sufficiently alleged the requisite
¶ 23 In the present case, the plaintiffs alleged that they are Illinois residents and that they were hired by Sasca and ADDO to work for Mujkic and BDJ, for which they are owed wages. They further alleged that all four defendants were employers under the Wage Act. With respect to the defendants BDJ and Mujkic, the plaintiffs alleged that under section 13 of the Wage Act, Mujkic and BDJ, as agents of Sasca and ADDO, permitted Sasca and ADDO to violate the provisions of the Wage Act, by not paying them the requisite “wages,” so as “to be deemed employers” under the Wage Act. See
¶ 24 The same is true of the plaintiff‘s cause of action against Sasca and ADDO. While it is true that ADDO is a limited liability company with its principal place of business in Michigan, the agency‘s regulations make clear that the Wage Act can apply to out-of-state employers, where the work is performed in Illinois and the employer has “sufficient contacts in the State.”
¶ 25 In their pleadings, the plaintiffs alleged that they performed work in Illinois for Sasca and ADDO for the benefit of BDJ.2 In that respect, they alleged that defendants Sasca and ADDO had a contract with Mujkic and BDJ, who operated a business in Illinois for ADDO to supply trucks and drivers to BDJ for the transportation of freight. The plaintiffs alleged that at all relevant times, Sasca and ADDO were physically storing their trucks in BDJ‘s trucking yard in Illinois. In addition, the defendant Sasca was physically present in Illinois and used BDJ‘s trucking facility to recruit and set the terms of employment (including wages) with both of the plaintiffs. Throughout the two-year employment, the drivers were dispatched from BDJ‘s facility in Illinois, but ADDO communicated the destination of trips and remained in regular contact with the plaintiffs during those trips, by way of cell phone. Because at this stage of proceedings we are required to take all well-pleaded facts in the plaintiffs’ complaint and inferences therefrom as true, we are compelled to conclude that the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged Sasca‘s and ADDO‘s contacts with Illinois and in-state activity, so as to be permitted to proceed with their claim. See Doe-3, 2012 IL 112479, ¶ 16.
¶ 26 For these reasons, we conclude that the trial court‘s order dismissing the plaintiffs’ cause of action was improper.
¶ 27 In coming to this decision, we have reviewed the federal decisions in Glass, 133 F.3d at 1000-01, and Cohan v. Medline Industries, Inc., 170 F. Supp. 3d 1162, 1175 (N.D. Ill. 2016), relied upon by the trial court and cited by the defendants, and find them inapposite.
¶ 28 Neither of those cases involved an Illinois employee. In Glass, the court refused to apply the Wage Act to a non-Illinois resident, who performed all of his work outside of Illinois, in Spain. Glass, 133 F.3d at 1000-01. Similarly, in Cohan, the court refused to apply the Wage Act to a New York resident who travelled to Illinois only a few days out of the year for training. See Cohan, 170 F. Supp. 3d at 1174-75. By contrast, in the present case, it is undisputed that the plaintiffs were Illinois residents and that the work they performed originated and ended in Illinois. In addition, unlike the present case, both Glass and Cohan were decided on summary judgment, with the parties benefiting from discovery and making a full factual record. In contrast, here, the cause of action was prematurely dismissed at the pleading stage.
III. CONCLUSION
¶ 29 For all of the aforementioned reasons, we reverse the judgment of the circuit court and remand for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.