Remember a Connecticut appellate decision a few weeks ago that suggested that a bonus allegedly promised to an associate could be "wages" under Connecticut’s wage statutes? Indeed, a fellow Connecticut blogger suggested that 2008 was shaping to be a banner y
ear for employees.
Well, not so fast. A new Connecticut Supreme Court decision today
Yesterday, I discussed the employment contract portion of a new Appellate Court case, Ziotas v. The Reardon Law Firm (download here).
Today, I’ll discuss the second part of the court’s decision on whether the associate’s bonus could be said to be "wages". Why is this important? Because under state law (Conn. Gen. Stat. 31-72)
In a decision released today, the Connecticut Appellate Court upheld a lower court judgment that found that a local lawfirm breached its employment contract to an associate by failing to pay that associate a bonus.
It’s rare to see lawfirms involved in employment disputes, and even rarer, to have cases proceed all the way to
Connecticut’s wage payment statutes, with the definition of wages found at Conn. Gen. Stat. 31-71a(3), certainly have left courts room to interpret the statute. After all, the definition of wages is merely:
compensation for labor or services rendered by an employee, whether the amount is determined on a time, task, piece, commission or other