{"id":5745,"date":"2025-03-21T10:32:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T14:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=5745"},"modified":"2025-03-21T10:32:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T14:32:15","slug":"the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html","title":{"rendered":"The New Jersey Supreme Court Rules: Commissions are Wages"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On March 17, 2025, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision finding that commissions are wages under the New Jersey Wage Payment Law (\u201cWPL\u201d) because they are \u201cdirect monetary compensation for labor or services rendered by an employee.\u201d There are no exceptions \u2013 compensating an employee by paying a commission for a labor or service always constitutes a wage under the law.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Underlying Dispute<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Plaintiff, Rosalyn Musker (\u201cMusker\u201d), worked as a sales manager for the Defendant company, Sukhi, Inc. (\u201cSuuchi\u201d), which provided a proprietary software platform for apparel manufacturers and primarily generated revenue from subscriptions to its services. Musker earned a base salary of $80,000 and was entitled to receive commissions based on different tiers of sales that she reached in accordance with Suuchi\u2019s Sales Commission Plan (the \u201cSCP\u201d), which included language intended to \u201ccover all sales situations.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading The New Jersey Supreme Court Rules: Commissions are Wages\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On March 17, 2025, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision finding that commissions are wages under the New Jersey Wage Payment Law (\u201cWPL\u201d) because they are \u201cdirect monetary compensation for labor or services rendered by an employee.\u201d There are no exceptions \u2013 compensating an employee by paying a commission for a labor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,247,291],"tags":[],"coauthors":[296],"class_list":["post-5745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights","category-labor-employment-insights","category-gingeleskie"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The New Jersey Supreme Court Rules: Commissions are Wages &#8212; March 21, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On March 17, 2025, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision finding that commissions are wages under the New Jersey Wage Payment Law\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The New Jersey Supreme Court Rules: Commissions are Wages &#8212; March 21, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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Firm News &amp; Events","og_description":"On March 17, 2025, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision finding that commissions are wages under the New Jersey Wage Payment Law","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html","og_site_name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","article_published_time":"2025-03-21T14:32:15+00:00","author":"Lisa Gingeleskie","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lisa Gingeleskie","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html"},"author":{"name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f"},"headline":"The New Jersey Supreme Court Rules: Commissions are Wages","datePublished":"2025-03-21T14:32:15+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html"},"wordCount":616,"articleSection":["Insights","Labor &amp; Employment","Lisa Gingeleskie"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-commissions-are-wages.html","name":"The New Jersey Supreme Court Rules: Commissions are Wages &#8212; March 21, 2025 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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