St. Vincent Hosp. and Health Care Ctr., Inc. v. Steele

St. Vincent Hosp. and Health Care Ctr., Inc. v. Steele,

No. 34S02-0107 (Ind. Apr. 22, 2002)

A
physician sued a hospital when the hospital began excluding monies received
from Medicare and Medicaid patients from the formula used to calculate his income.
The physician argued the exclusion was in violation of the Indiana Wage Payment
Statute. The hospital argued that the Wage Payment Statute only governed the
frequency that an employer must pay its employees, not the amount. The Supreme
Court of Indiana ruled that the hospital’s interpretation of the law could not
be supported. The court found that the statute made repeated use of the terms
"amount due" and "all wages." Therefore, the court stated
that to find that the statute did not govern the amount paid to employees would
read out of the statute that which clearly exists and create an absurd result
whereby employers could pay employees $1 every other week and still be in compliance
with the statute.