{ "id": 2797434, "name": "Conlon-Moore Corporation, Appellee, vs. Robert Johnston, Successor to Roy F. Cummins, Director of Labor, Appellant", "name_abbreviation": "Conlon-Moore Corp. v. Johnston", "decision_date": "1961-11-30", "docket_number": "No. 36427", "first_page": "341", "last_page": "344", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "23 Ill. 2d 341" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill.", "id": 8772, "name": "Illinois Supreme Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "409 Ill. 576", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill.", "case_ids": [ 5309649 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill/409/0576-01" ] }, { "cite": "61 A.2d 796", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "A.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "95 N.H. 255", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.H.", "case_ids": [ 2353288 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nh/95/0255-01" ] }, { "cite": "131 N.E.2d 568", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "309 N.Y. 401", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.Y.", "case_ids": [ 2238936 ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ny/309/0401-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 382, "char_count": 5987, "ocr_confidence": 0.783, "pagerank": { "raw": 2.0729727621818142e-07, "percentile": 0.7580241164639329 }, "sha256": "6353baef7cce61f56240211f5989eac668911b47386986350d25c1067c2ddd1b", "simhash": "1:94ad55624c076585", "word_count": 979 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T18:46:42.308421+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "Conlon-Moore Corporation, Appellee, vs. Robert Johnston, Successor to Roy F. Cummins, Director of Labor, Appellant," ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Mr. Justice Hershey\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThis is on appeal upon the granting by this court of petition for leave to appeal from the judgment of the Appellate Court, First District, affirming a judgment of the circuit court of Cook County entered in a declaratory judgment action brought by Conlon-Moore Corporation wherein the circuit court held that \u201cwages\u201d as used in the \u201cWage Payment Act of Illinois\u201d does not include vacation pay.\nAppellee, Conlon-Moore Corporation, permanently ended production at its plant in Joliet, Illinois, in October, 1957. It refused to pay employee claims for \u201cvacation pay\u201d for any period of employment after May 1, 1957. The pay of its employees was based upon a collective bargaining agreement effective from January 1, 1956, until December, 1957. The Director of the Department of Labor of Illinois through his Wage Claim Division held an informal hearing and ^notified appellee to pay the claims within five days or that failure so to do would result in enforcement as provided by law. Appellee thereupon filed this suit for declaratory judgment and to restrain enforcement of the Wage Payment Act of 1937. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1959, chap. 48, pars. 39g \u2014 39m.) The court entered a declaratory judgment as prayed but refused injunction or a restraining order.\nStipulation was entered into between the parties which included agreements that unless appellee complied with the Department order of pa)nment, prosecution would result; also, that there existed a collective bargaining agreement effective between appellee and its employees which, in article V, entitled \u201cVacations,\u201d contained provisions as to the conditions and eligibility requirements for vacations and vacation pay.\nThe sole question here involved is whether the term \u201cwages,\u201d as used in the Wage Payment Act of 1937, includes within its meaning and purpose \u201cvacation pay\u201d as provided for in the collective bargaining agreement.\nIn holding that the term \u201cwages\u201d as used in the statute does not include vacation pay, the Appellate Court relied heavily upon certain periodical literature indicating that paid vacations and other fringe benefits were uncommon at the time of the enactment of the law, thus raising an inference that it was unlikely that the legislature intended to use the word \u201cwages\u201d to include such benefits. The Appellate Court also relied upon the opinion of the New York Court of Appeals in People v. Vetri, 309 N.Y. 401, 131 N.E.2d 568, construing a somewhat analogous New York statute, and upon the general 'principle that since the statute under consideration contains criminal penalties, it is penal in nature and should be strictly construed. We do not, however, regard these factors as conclusive, but think that the problem can be better approached by a consideration of the primary subject and purpose of the statute as revealed by a reading of the statute itself.\nThe statute contains no express definition of the term \u201cwages\u201d as used therein. A reading of the statute as a whole, however, reveals that, like the Semi-Monthly Payment of Wages Act, it is dealing with wage payments that are due and payable at regular intervals, and its purpose is to insure that such payments are promptly made. But vacation pay, by its very nature, is not ordinarily intended to be paid at regular intervals. Instead, it is intended to be accumulated until the vacation period arrives, and then paid to the employee. Thus vacation pay would not ordinarily be included in the term \"wages\u201d as used in the statute. It could be argued, of course, that the situation is different where, as here, a plant shuts down, and that, in such a case, vacation pay should have been included within the term \u201cwages.\u201d However, the statute makes no provision for this contingency, and we do not feel free to adopt a construction that vacation pay becomes wages in this particular situation when it is ordinarily not wages when used in the statute. We hold, therefore, that the trial and Appellate courts correctly held that the term \u201cwages\u201d as used in the Wage Payment Act of 1937 does not include vacation pay.\nWhile some collective bargaining agreements have been so construed that \u201cvacation pay is included in the term wages\u201d (Brampton Woolen Co. v. Local Union No. 112, 95 N.H. 255, 61 A.2d 796), and in a number of bankruptcy cases \u201cvacation pay\u201d has been included in the priority given to \u201cwage\u201d claims, these are not decisive of the interpretation of the instant statute. Neither is our opinion in Grobe v. Board of Review of Dept. of Labor, 409 Ill. 576, controlling here, since the court, in interpreting the Illinois Unemployment Compensation Act to hold that the Director of Labor may not pay unemployment compensation to a worker for a period when he is not working but is receiving vacation pay because vacation pay in that statute is wages, was interpreting merely the particular statute before it. In that statute \u201cwages\u201d as used therein was defined broadly as \"every form of remuneration for personal services.\u201d No such broad definition is in the statute here under consideration.\nDisposition of the basic question as is here made disposes of this case. We decide here only that vacation pay is not included within the term wages as used in the particular statute. Questions concerning the liability of the employer to any employee for vacation pay or of any civil remedies available to the employees to enforce any such liability are not before us.\nThe judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed.\nJudgment affirmed.", "type": "majority", "author": "Mr. Justice Hershey" } ], "attorneys": [ "William G. Clark, Attorney General, of Springfield, (William C. Wines, Raymond S. Sarnow, A. Zola Groves, and Philip G. Bixler, Assistant Attorneys General, of counsel,) for appellant.", "Dorfman, DeKoven & Cohen, of Chicago, (Seymour Cohen and Richard W. Laner, of counsel,) for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "(No. 36427.\nConlon-Moore Corporation, Appellee, vs. Robert Johnston, Successor to Roy F. Cummins, Director of Labor, Appellant,\nOpinion filed November 30, 1961.\nWilliam G. Clark, Attorney General, of Springfield, (William C. Wines, Raymond S. Sarnow, A. Zola Groves, and Philip G. Bixler, Assistant Attorneys General, of counsel,) for appellant.\nDorfman, DeKoven & Cohen, of Chicago, (Seymour Cohen and Richard W. Laner, of counsel,) for appellee." }, "file_name": "0341-01", "first_page_order": 341, "last_page_order": 344 }