Swift v. Autozone, Inc. (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court)

This case raises the issue whether a Massachusetts retailer may offset an employee’s Sunday premium payments against time-and-a-half overtime for working more than 40 hours in the same week.  The Superior Court ruled that an employer must make payments under both the Sunday premium pay law and the wage overtime law for the same hours worked, and may not offset one payment against the other. The Massachusetts Minimum Fair Wage and Overtime Law (“Overtime Law”), G.L. c.151, §1A, requires an employer to pay a non-exempt employee time-and-a-half her regular wages for any work in excess of 40 hours per week.  A second law, G.L. c.136, §6(50), the retail exemption to the Sunday blue laws, requires most retailers to “compensate all employees engaged in the work performed on Sunday . . . at a rate not less than one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate.”  At the time this suit was filed in February, 2002, both statutes were silent on the issue of crediting Sunday premium payments toward overtime pay. Autozone employees Joseph Swift and Edward Cove filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and all current or former AutoZone employees in the Commonwealth who have worked over 40 hours in a workweek in which they have also worked on a Sunday, and who have been subject to AutoZone’s policy of offsetting overtime pay with Sunday premium pay.  NELF, together with Associated Industries of Massachusetts and the Boston Management Attorneys Group, filed a brief in support of Autozone, arguing that nothing in the Overtime Law prohibits Autozone’s policy.  NELF and other amici also argued that Autozone’s position is consistent with the FLSA, on which the Overtime Law is modeled, and with the writings of commentators on wage law.  Moreover, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, the state agency charged with enforcing both the blue laws and the Overtime Law, has interpreted the statutes consistently with the FLSA and has allowed retailers, and AutoZone specifically, to credit Sunday premium pay toward overtime pay.  Amici further argued that the trial court’s interpretation of the Overtime Law and the Sunday premium pay law violates the will of the legislature because it requires double pay for the same hours worked, while the Legislature has recognized only time and-a-half payments. Indeed, in late November, 2003 the Legislature amended the Overtime Law to make it clear that retail employee hours worked on Sunday or certain holidays and compensated at time-and-a-half shall be excluded from the calculation of overtime pay. The Supreme Judicial Court agreed with the position of amici and held that an employer may offset Sunday premium pay against overtime pay. "If two statutes require an employer to do the same thing, there is no rule of statutory construction that compels the employer to do so twice." The Court also observed that the 2003 emergency statute permitting the crediting of overtime pay is strongly suggestive of the Legislature's original intent when it first enacted the Overtime Law in 1960.