166 | Massachusetts Wage & Hour Peculiarities, 2025 ed. © 2025 Seyfarth Shaw LLP XIII. ATTORNEY GENERAL’S OFFICE COMPLAINTS, INVESTIGATIONS AND ENFORCEMENT An employee seeking redress of certain wage and hour violations is expected to file a complaint with the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General,1012 which then will choose to dismiss the complaint, investigate it, or authorize the employee to pursue an independent civil action.1013 The Attorney General’s Office continues to place a high priority on cases related to wage theft and misclassification of individuals as independent contractors, and emphasizes issues related to the construction, retail, and hospitality industries, among others.1014 While the statute contemplates that employees may not sue employers for certain wage and hour violations without first exhausting their administrative remedies with the Attorney General, the SJC has held that a plaintiff’s failure to file a complaint with the Office of the Attorney General prior to filing a private lawsuit was not a jurisdictional bar to the lawsuit, provided that “the Attorney General is notified of the suit during its pendency.”1015 Where a complaint is first filed with the Office of the Attorney General, the issuance of a “right-to-sue” letter does not confer upon the employee the power to act as a special attorney general or to pursue a lawsuit based on a statutory provision for which there is no private right of action.1016 The following table lists the statutes of limitations for those wage and hour violations that include a private right of action in Massachusetts. 1012 M.G.L. ch. 149, §§ 2 and 150. 1013 See M.G.L. ch. 149, § 150. 1014 See, e.g., Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s 2023 Labor Day Report, available at https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2023/08/31/2023%20LABOR%20DAY%20REPORT.pdf (last visited Mar. 6, 2025). Many investigations are coordinated with other state agencies. In 2014, Massachusetts enacted An Act Restoring the Minimum Wage and Providing Unemployment Insurance Reforms, which, among other provisions, established the Council on the Underground Economy (CUE). The CUE is a permanent entity responsible for coordinating the Commonwealth’s efforts to combat the underground economy and employee misclassification. See M.G.L. ch. 23, § 25. It includes the chief of the Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division, as well as representatives from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and Department of Unemployment Assistance, among others. In its most recent annual report, the CUE announced that it had assessed almost $10.5 million in wage restitution, state taxes, unemployment contributions, fines, and penalties. The annual report is available at https://www.mass.gov/cue-annual-reports (last visited Mar. 6, 2025). 1015 See Depianti v. Jan-Pro Franchising Int’l, Inc., 465 Mass. 607, 614 (2013); see also Lawless v. Steward Health Care System, LLC, 894 F.3d 9 (1st Cir. 2018) (rejecting argument that a plaintiff may not sue an employer in court for violations of the Wage Act until the Attorney General issues a right to sue letter or 90 days from the filing of a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office expires); Owens v. City of Malden, 85 F.4th 625,631 (1st Cir. 2023) (filing of complaint with the Office of the Attorney General before the district court entered final judgment satisfied the Wage Act’s filing requirement). 1016 See Tortolano v. Lemuel Shattuck Hosp., 93 Mass. App. Ct. 773, 780-81 (2018) (explaining that the Office of the Attorney General “was without power to confer . . .a private right of action . . .[or] create an alternative enforcement mechanism” through a right-to-sue letter).
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