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An employee may be able to enforce a right to
certain kinds of bonuses under a contract theory (for
example, if a bonus is not discretionary but something
the employer has made a binding agreement to pay), but
would not be able to invoke the additional liability
provisions of the Wage Act (in other words, they could
recover the amount of the promised bonus, but not triple
damages or attorneys’ fees).
Chapter 4
Employee vs. Independent Contractor
As you can perhaps tell from the previous chapter,
it might be tempting for an employer to pay people as
independent contractors rather than W-2 employees, in
order to avoid the many potential pitfalls of wage and
hour laws. This is a very risky proposition under
Massachusetts law, which provides that any individual
54| Rules of the Road
