CONNOLLY, J.
PayFlex Systems USA, Inc. (PayFlex), appeals from the district court's judgments in these consolidated appeals from the county court. The district court affirmed the county court's summary judgment that required PayFlex to pay earned but unused "paid time off" (PTO) hours to the appellees, Duane E. Fisher and Jason R. Norton. The issue is whether Neb.Rev. Stat. § 48-1229 (Reissue 2010) of the Wage Payment and Collection Act (Wage Payment Act)
We affirm. Regardless of the label that PayFlex attached to its PTO hours, they were indistinguishable from earned vacation time under § 48-1229. Like earned vacation time, the appellees had an unconditional right to use their earned PTO hours for any purpose. Because the Wage Payment Act requires an employer to pay earned but unused vacation leave to an employee upon separation of employment, the district court correctly affirmed the county court's summary judgment that ordered PayFlex to pay the appellees their unused PTO benefits.
Fisher and Norton both separated from their employment with PayFlex in July 2010. Fisher's hourly wage was $43.7019, and his PTO balance was 146.64 hours. Norton's hourly wage $32.1678, and his PTO balance was 120.14 hours. PayFlex
(Emphasis in original.)
A chart in the employee manual sets out the number of PTO hours that employees would earn per pay period and per year, depending upon their years of employment. For example, a 1-year employee would earn 120 PTO hours (15 days) per year, while employees who had worked for PayFlex 9 or more years would earn 200 PTO hours (25 days) per year.
The payroll manager stated that in her 11 years of employment, PayFlex had never provided separate vacation leave and sick leave benefits. The vice president of human resources testified that employees, if they wished, could use all of their accrued PTO hours for vacation time. As employees used their PTO hours, PayFlex listed their paid-out hours as part of the employee's total earnings on their paycheck. PayFlex also provided up to 3 days of funeral leave for employees, which it did not deduct from their PTO hours.
After the county court consolidated these cases, both sides moved for summary judgment. The issue was whether a 2007 amendment to § 48-1229 permitted PayFlex to refuse to pay unused PTO benefits to separating employees even though the statute required it to pay unused vacation leave. PayFlex argued that PTO hours were a hybrid benefit that did not constitute vacation leave. The county court rejected that argument and sustained the appellees' motions for summary judgment. It concluded that accepting PayFlex's argument would allow it to deprive the appellees of an earned vacation benefit, contrary to the Legislature's intention in the Wage Payment Act. It later sustained the appellees' motion for attorney fees.
PayFlex appealed to the district court, which agreed with the appellees. It concluded
The court affirmed the county court's award of attorney fees and awarded the appellees additional attorney fees on appeal.
PayFlex assigns, restated and condensed, that the district court erred in (1) affirming the county court's summary judgment order, which determined that PayFlex's refusal to pay the appellees' unpaid PTO hours deprived them of an earned benefit that they were entitled to collect under § 48-1229(4); and (2) concluding that § 48-1229(4) did not permit PayFlex to refuse payment of accrued PTO hours because PTO is not earned but unused vacation; and (3) affirming the county court's awards of attorney fees and awarding them additional attorney fees.
We review a county court's judgment for errors appearing on the record.
Both parties agree that the plain language of § 48-1229(4) requires employers to pay earned but unused vacation leave to a separating employee. But they disagree whether PTO hours constitute vacation leave.
Section 48-1230(3)(a) requires employers to pay unpaid wages to an employee upon the employee's separation of employment: "Whenever an employer, other than a political subdivision, separates an employee from the payroll, the unpaid wages shall become due on the next regular payday or within two weeks of the date of termination, whichever is sooner[.]"
Section 48-1229(4) defines "wages" to include fringe benefits: "Wages means compensation for labor or services rendered by an employee, including fringe benefits, when previously agreed to and
In 2007, however, the Legislature amended the definition of wages under § 48-1229(4) to include a limitation that is at issue here:
PayFlex contends that under the plain language of the amended § 48-1229(4), unused PTO hours are not unused vacation leave that must be paid to an employee upon separation of employment. It also argues that the county court's determination is contrary to the legislative history of the 2007 amendment.
The appellees contend that because an employee can use earned PTO hours the same as earned vacation hours, PTO hours are an earned benefit — not a contingent benefit — which an employer must treat as wages. They argue that the label cannot control whether an employer has a duty to pay unused vacation leave. And they argue that if we conclude PTO hours are not vacation leave, employers can circumvent their statutory duty to pay unused vacation leave by combining sick leave with vacation leave. Finally, they argue that the legislative history confirms that their position is correct.
Absent a statutory indication to the contrary, we give words in a statute their ordinary meaning.
Section 48-1229(4) does not define the term "vacation leave" as distinguished from other types of "paid leave." But a "vacation" from work is ordinarily understood to mean a paid leave of absence granted to an employee for rest and relaxation.
In contrast to vacation leave, paid sick leave is ordinarily understood to mean an employee's paid absence from work for illness or disability.
In short, the distinction between paid vacation leave and paid sick leave is that sick leave is contingent upon an occurrence and vacation leave is not. With both vacation and PayFlex's PTO hours, an employee earns the leave and has an absolute right to take this time off for any purpose, subject to the employer's approval of the timing. So the definition of vacation leave is indistinguishable from PayFlex's definition of its PTO benefit. For this reason, legal commentators advise employers subject to similar statutes to maintain separate accounts for employees' accrued vacation leave and sick leave, or to pay employees their unused PTO hours upon separation if they combine vacation leave and sick leave into a single PTO policy.
Under § 48-1229, we will consider a payment a wage subject to the Wage Payment Act if (1) it is compensation for labor or services, (2) it was previously agreed to, and (3) all the conditions stipulated have been met.
PayFlex's argument that it is not required to pay earned but unused
We do not consider a statute's clauses and phrases "`as detached and isolated expressions.'"
The fundamental objective of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and carry out the Legislature's intent.
Applying these principles, the Legislature's clear intent in the 2007 amendment was to clarify that employers were not required to pay separating employees any unused paid leave except vacation leave. PayFlex does not dispute that even after the 2007 amendment, it was required to pay unused vacation. Yet, accepting its "hybrid benefit" argument would allow any employer to circumvent this requirement by claiming that its combined leave policy was not vacation leave.
We reject this interpretation. If the Legislature had intended to permit employers to avoid the payment of earned vacation leave, it would have done this directly instead of requiring them to do an end run around the statute by combining earned vacation leave with another type of paid leave. That is, it would have simply stated that employers were not required to pay any earned but unused leave upon separation of employment unless the parties have agreed otherwise. Instead, it mandated that employers must pay vacation leave. So interpreting "[p]aid leave, other than earned but unused vacation leave" to include vacation leave if the employer has combined vacation with another type of paid leave would obviously defeat a clear legislative intent. Because PayFlex's interpretation requires us to ignore a statutory mandate, it is not a reasonable interpretation. The application of § 48-1229(4)
Finally, we reject PayFlex's argument that the legislative history shows the Legislature considered PTO hours to be a paid leave other than vacation leave. We can examine an act's legislative history if a statute is ambiguous or requires interpretation.
To sum up, PayFlex had agreed to provide PTO hours as compensation for labor or services, and the appellees had met the conditions for receiving this compensation. Because the appellees had an absolute right to take this time off for any purpose they wished, under § 48-1229, their earned but unused PTO hours must be treated the same as earned but unused vacation hours. The district court did not err in affirming the county court's summary judgments for the appellees.
PayFlex next contends that the district court erred in affirming the county court's awards of attorney fees and in awarding additional attorney fees. It acknowledges that § 48-1231 authorizes a court to award attorney fees, but it contends that there were no factors present that warranted an award in excess of the statutory minimum. The appellees contend that § 48-1231 does not set a limit on attorney fees and that the evidence supported the county court's awards.
Under § 48-1231, "[a]n employee having a claim for wages which are not paid within thirty days of the regular payday designated or agreed upon may institute suit for such unpaid wages in the proper court." If the employee has an attorney and secures a judgment, the employee "shall be entitled to recover... all costs of such suit and ... an amount for attorney's fees assessed by the court, which fees shall not be less than twenty-five percent of the unpaid wages."
The county court awarded Fisher $6,408.45 in unpaid wages and awarded Norton $3,864.64 in unpaid wages. Twenty-five percent of the combined judgments equaled $2,568.27. At the hearing on the appellees' motions for attorney fees, the court received their attorney's affidavits in support of the motions. The attorney stated that he had spent a total of 54 hours to research and prosecute both cases. He asked the court to apportion his time as 27 hours in each case. He stated that his normal hourly rate was $150 per hour. The court received no other evidence. The county court awarded each appellee $4,050 for attorney fees. On appeal, the district court awarded each appellee additional fees of $2,100.
We review a court's award of attorney fees under § 48-1231 for abuse of
PayFlex did not contest any of the above factors. On appeal, it does not argue that the awards are unsupported by these factors. Instead, its argument rests on two decisions that it interprets to show that an employer's unreasonable conduct or willful violations must be present to support a court's award of attorney fees in an amount greater than the statutory minimum. We disagree.
PayFlex first relies on Roseland v. Strategic Staff Mgmt.
In Moore v. Eggers Consulting Co.,
Roseland and Moore show that a court has discretion to award attorney fees higher than the statutory minimum because the employer raised unreasonable defenses or vexatious counterclaims. They do not show that these factors must be present before a court can award more than the statutory minimum.
Our more recent decision in Schinnerer v. Nebraska Diamond Sales Co.
Schinnerer controls here. PayFlex conceded in district court that the case raised a novel issue, and it presented no evidence that the fees were unreasonable. Its sole argument was that a departure from the statutory minimum was unwarranted because its position was reasonable and it had not raised multiple defenses apart from its interpretation of the Wage Payment Act. We reject that argument. Because nothing in the record shows that the lower courts abused their discretion, we affirm their awards of attorney fees.
We conclude that the appellees' earned but unused PTO hours were for vacation leave. Accordingly, the lower courts did not err in determining that PayFlex was required to pay the unused PTO hours to the appellees. Nor did the lower courts err in their awards of attorney fees to the appellees.
AFFIRMED.
MILLER-LERMAN, J., participating on briefs.
STEPHAN, J., dissenting.
On the surface, these seem to be relatively simple cases. The facts are largely undisputed. PayFlex offers its employees a paid time off (PTO) benefit. They may use all or any part of this paid leave for vacation, but they are not required to do so and may use it for other purposes.
Likewise, the applicable law seems straightforward enough. In Roseland v. Strategic Staff Mgmt.,
The illusion of simplicity disappears when one attempts to apply the current law to the facts of these cases. The difficulty stems from two factors. First, the Legislature did not define the term "vacation leave" as used in the amended version of § 48-1229(4). Second, PayFlex's PTO policy allows employees to use PTO for both vacation and other purposes, and the reason for the use is at the sole discretion of the employee. The question is whether this type of accrued PTO falls within the general rule established by § 48-1229(4) or the exception in that statute. The problem is that it falls neatly within neither.
The majority attempts to resolve this jurisprudential dilemma by applying the following syllogism: Vacation leave is not contingent upon an event, and this employer's paid time off is not contingent upon an event; thus, this employer's paid time off is vacation leave. But the majority's major premise is flawed. While vacation leave may not be contingent upon an event, it does not logically follow that there cannot be some other type of leave that also is not contingent upon an event. And clearly, the language of § 48-1229(4) permits employers and employees to agree upon paid leave that is both not contingent upon some event and not vacation leave.
The majority reasons that its approach carries out the intent of the Legislature because unless all accrued PTO is treated as "unused vacation leave," the employer would be permitted to circumvent the requirement of § 48-1229(4) that it pay a separated employee for vacation leave. But the other side of the coin is that by treating all accrued PTO as vacation leave simply because vacation is one of the multiple purposes for which the leave may be used, the majority broadens the category of paid leave payable upon separation, which is directly contrary to the Legislature's intent when it amended § 48-1229(4).
In the absence of clarification by further amendment of the statute, which I would welcome and invite, there is no perfect solution to this dilemma. Nevertheless, I would resolve this case in favor of PayFlex because I believe doing so most closely carries out the Legislature's intent when it amended the Wage Payment and Collection Act in response to Roseland.
My analysis starts with the recognition that there is no law that requires an employer to grant its employees either vacation time or vacation leave. Instead, because the relationship between employer and employee is contractual,
Utilizing this definitional framework, the PayFlex PTO is not "vacation leave" within the meaning of § 48-1229(4). Instead, it is a much broader form of paid leave which provides an employee with flexibility to use PTO for any purpose he or she chooses, including, but not limited to, taking a vacation, recovering from surgery, painting a house, repairing a vehicle, nursing a cold, caring for a parent, taking an adult education class, or looking for another job. The PayFlex policy expressly states that earned PTO will not be paid upon separation of employment. No law prevents PayFlex from structuring its PTO policy in this way. By doing so, it is not circumventing any legal obligation to pay "unused vacation leave" because it has no legal obligation to provide "vacation leave," and in my view, it has not done so. It has provided a different type of paid leave which falls within the general rule of § 48-1229(4), not within the exception. A herd of elephants cannot be fairly characterized as a herd of zebras simply because one zebra is traveling with the elephants. By treating multi-purpose PTO as defined in the PayFlex policy as the equivalent of vacation leave simply because vacation is one of the purposes for which it can be used, the majority's reasoning permits the exception to swallow the rule.
Because I would hold that PayFlex's PTO is not vacation leave within the meaning of § 48-1229(4), I would find that the employees were not entitled to recover attorney fees under § 48-1231. For these reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the district court in each of these consolidated cases and remand the causes with directions to reverse the judgments of the county court and remand with directions to dismiss.
HEAVICAN, C.J., and CASSEL, J., join in this dissent.