Rowe v. Grapevine Corporation

In Rowe v. Grapevine Corporation, 193 W. Va. 274, 456 S.E.2d 1 (1995), the Court indicated that the fact that an individual was an employee of one "employer" did not preclude him from pursuing a claim under West Virginia's Wage Payment and Collection Act against another individual or secondary "employer" for whom he did work for wages. In that case, foreign agricultural workers were employed by an organization called Tri-County Growers, Inc., but actually picked crops for a number of individual orchard owners. In Rowe v. Grapevine Corporation, id., the Court recognized that the workers could maintain an action under the West Virginia Wage Payment and Collection Act against the orchard owners, as well as Tri-State Growers, Inc., so long as their orchard owners took primary responsibility for the day-to-day management of the workers when they were employed in their orchards.