Bisbing v. Maine Medical Center, 820 A.2d 582, 2003 ME 49.

Plaintiff Bisbing was employed as an emergency physician with the Maine Medical Center (“MMC”) and left voluntarily in 2000. He claimed that MMC owed him eight weeks of accrued vacation time. MMC countered that Bisbing, like all other MMC emergency doctors, worked an irregular schedule that had allowed ample vacation time. A jury found for Bisbing, and the presiding judge assessed treble damages and attorneys’ fees against MMC, in accordance with the Maine delayed wage statute. MMC appealed the award of treble damages and fees to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, asserting that the statute contained an implicit good-faith defense against such relief. NELF filed an amicus brief supporting MMC, arguing that Maine case law limiting common-law punitive damages to egregious circumstances should apply to statutory multiple damages. An implied good-faith defense would prevent the imposition of a severe penalty on employers that have genuine factual disputes with employees about past due wages. The Court, however, upheld the judgment below, reading the statute strictly.