USA – MASSACHUSETTS Trends and Developments Contributed by: William C. Martucci, Stephen I. Hansen, Lisa O. White and Brandon L. Arber, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP
in pleading facts necessary to state a claim on behalf of potential opt-ins. The only complaint that properly pleaded facts in support of such claims was filed on 16 March 2020 – after the statute of limitations had already lapsed for potential opt-ins. The First Circuit also noted that while Bah had raised equitable tolling in its opposition to the defendants’ original motion to dismiss, Bah had never again raised the issue of tolling after that first motion to dismiss was decided. The panel suggested that Bah should have raised the motion again to address further case delays caused by subsequent motion practice related to the amended complaints. Accordingly, the panel declined to second guess the decision-making of the district court to find that the delay was not a “delay beyond the movant’s control”, and arising from plain - tiff’s own actions and inactions and not in any way “inherent” in the FLSA certification process. District Court resolves ambiguity in Massachusetts Wage Act and finds employee stated viable claim for one-day delayed payments In a case of first impression, the District of Massa - chusetts in Turgut v Hitachi Rail STS USA, Inc., 768 F.Supp.3d 200 (27 February 2025) , examined if an employee had stated a viable claim under the Mas- sachusetts Wage Act by alleging that his employer paid its engineering managers on the seventh – and not the sixth – day following the close of the payroll period. That is what the plaintiff Volkan Turgut (Tur - gut) contended in a putative class action against his employer, Hitachi Rail STS USA (Hitachi). The Court openly acknowledged that, to some, a one-day differ - ence in payment dates may be seen as harmless. But after an in-depth analysis of statutory construction, the Court determined that the answer was “yes” – one day delays in payment could be the basis of a viable Wage Act claim, but that the claim depended on the specific work schedule of the employee in consid - eration of the employee’s status as either salaried or hourly worker. Turgut, a senior engineer manager with Hitachi, alleged that he works five days a week and is paid on a 14-day payroll period. He further claimed that Hitachi does not pay him within six days of the close of any payroll period, and has not done so since at
least February 2021. In his complaint, Turgut alleged that most Hitachi employees in Massachusetts work either five or six days per week. Turgut purported to represent a class of Hitachi employees who did not receive their wages within six days of the close of the payroll period. Hitachi moved to dismiss the Wage Act claims. The Massachusetts Wage Act sets forth different deadlines for payment to employees depending upon how many days per week an employee works. A six- day deadline for payment applies to employees that work five or six days in a week; a seven-day deadline applies to employees that work less than five days per week, but also those employees that work seven days per week. Hitachi argued in its motion to dismiss that because the statute used the word “employed”, a salaried employee should be considered to be “employed” for seven days per week, notwithstanding how many days per week they actually work (allowing Hitachi to pay them on the seventh day after the close of the pay period). However, a 1960 amendment to the Wage Act that mandated that salaried employees should not go unpaid for more than six days presented a barrier to that interpretation. Finding the plain text of the statute and amendment to be ambiguous, the Court engaged in an analysis of legislative history and canons of statutory construction. After an analysis of relevant legislative and attorney general guidance materials, the Court ruled that in order to give full effect to the language of the 1960 amendment, it could not accept Hitachi’s argument that salaried employees were “employed” for seven days per week and subject to a seven-day payment deadline. Accordingly, the Court determined that for all salaried employees, the Wage Act requires that they be paid within six days. For hourly employees that work seven calendar days of a week, and those that work less than five calendar days in a week, the seven day deadline for payment similarly applies. Only hourly employees that work five or six calendar days per week must be paid within six days. Because the plaintiff worked only five days per week, the six day deadline for payment applied. Accordingly, the Court denied Hitachi’s motion to dismiss. In its conclusion, the Court noted that it was not entitled
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