CHICAGO — The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned an appellate court’s ruling, finding landscape workers couldn’t sue their employer over a wage dispute under the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act despite the company’s contract with the Chicago Park District.
The 12 tree planters sued Moore Landscape, alleging their employer paid them $18 an hour instead of the $41.20 prevailing wage as stipulated in three three-year contracts starting in 2012. The 12-count complaint, which included a Cook County prevailing wage document effective Sept. 1, 2017, sought back pay, 2% statutory punitive damages, prejudgment interest and legal fees.
Moore moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing its contract with the park district didn’t contain a clear stipulation the workers would earn $41.20 per hour, depriving them of the right to sue under the Prevailing Wage Act’s limitations. It further submitted an Illinois Department of Labor document indicating landscape work is outside the law’s scope unless it involves hardscape work or is associated with an otherwise covered project.
In response, nine plaintiffs submitted affidavits they also placed hardscape material in addition to their tree planting work. But on Jan. 25, 2019, a Cook County judge dismissed the complaint with prejudice, agreeing with Moore’s position on contract language.
The First District Appellate Court reversed that decision and remanded the complaint. It agreed Moore’s contract with the park district said only it would pay employees “prevailing wages where applicable,” but said the failure by either party to include language clearly stating if the project was or wasn’t subject to those standards didn’t limit the workers’ right to sue.
On Sept. 30, 2020, the Supreme Court allowed Moore’s appeal, and granted the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association and the Illinois Landscape Contractors Bargaining Association the right to submit briefs supporting Moore’s position. Those groups said a ruling in favor of the workers would counter the law’s language placing financial liability on the public body that failed to insert adequate prevailing wage stipulations in its contract.
Justice David Overstreet wrote the court’s unanimous opinion on Moore’s appeal, issued May 20.
Moore argued the appellate panel improperly determined the workers could force the circuit judge to determine if prevailing wages were required for their labor.
“We agree with defendant,” Overstreet wrote, “and conclude that, by including the conditional language ‘when applicable’ in the contracts, the Chicago Park District and defendant did not clearly stipulate that defendant’s payment of prevailing wage rates was applicable to plaintiffs’ landscaping work.”
Although the Court acknowledged dispute over the work’s eligibility for prevailing wages, it said the Prevailing Wage Act is clear that question is supposed to be addressed in the contract itself. It further highlighted part of the law empowering the DOL to assess violations and, in situations where the public body didn’t give sufficient written notice to the contractor, to order that body “to pay any interest, penalties or fines that would have been owed by the contractor if proper written notice were provided.” When the public body does provide adequate notice, a contractor bears financial liability for underpayment.
Overstreet said the court’s opinion doesn’t “preclude laborers from seeking relief for a contractor’s alleged violation of the Act for failing to pay them prevailing wage rates for prevailing wage work. However, the justices noted the law does limit damages to only the difference between what a worker was paid and what they would have earned under the prevailing wage.
The Court further rejected the workers’ argument the Prevailing Wage Act has an implied right to sue seeking the remedies the law does provide. Overstreet said the Supreme Court “has held that a statute’s provision for an express right of action prevents an implication of the same right of action as a matter of law.”
The workers were represented in the action by attorney Robert Habib, of Chicago.
Moore Landscapes has been represented by attorneys Peter J. Gillespie and Brian K. Jackson, of the firm of Laner Muchin Ltd., of Chicago.
The Illinois landscape trade associations were represented by attorney Kenneth A. Jenero, of Holland & Knight, of Chicago.