Sommers v. MarketPlace Realty, LLC.
2025 COA 97. No. 24CA2155. Colorado Wage Claim Act—Independent Contractor—Wages—Severance Pay.
December 24, 2025
Sanchez owns MarketPlace Realty, LLC (MPR), which buys and sells homes and manages rental properties. MPR hired Sommers as an independent contractor, and he became MPR’s chief financial officer (CFO). The parties entered into a signed compensation plan providing that if Sommers is terminated not for cause, MPR will give him six months’ salary as severance. MPR subsequently fired Sommers without paying him under the six-month provision. As relevant here, Sommers sued MPR and Sanchez for violation of the Colorado Wage Claim Act (CWCA). MPR moved for summary judgment, which the court granted.
On appeal, Sommers argued that the district court erroneously granted summary judgment because it improperly construed the CWCA’s reference to severance pay as unambiguous and held that MPR met its burden to establish that the six-month provision meets the CWCA’s definition of severance pay. Sommers maintained that “severance compensation” as used in the six-month provision is distinguishable from “severance pay” under the CWCA. However, the CWCA expressly excludes severance pay from the definition of wages, and the term “severance pay” is unambiguous. The court interpreted the CWCA statutory exclusion of severance pay from the definition of wages and concluded that an employment agreement providing for severance compensation in the event of an employee’s termination constituted severance pay under the CWCA. Here, MPR met its burden to establish that “the payout” was severance pay under the CWCA by citing the six-month provision’s reference to “severance compensation” and the CWCA’s exclusion of “severance pay” from the definition of wages, and arguing that severance pay under the statute and severance compensation in the six-month provision were the same. Accordingly, the district court did not err by interpreting the six-month provision as providing for severance pay under the CWCA and granting summary judgment.
Sommers also contended that the district court failed to consider the parties’ intent with respect to the six-month provision, but Sommers failed to preserve this argument.
Sommers further asserted that the district court erred by granting summary judgment despite disputes of fact regarding whether Sommers was terminated for cause. The court of appeals did not consider this argument because the district court properly found no dispute about whether the severance compensation in the six-month provision constituted severance pay under the CWCA, so why Sommers was terminated is immaterial.
Sommers also requested that he be allowed to amend his complaint to bring a breach of contract claim in the event of summary judgment affirmance. Here, however, there was no interlocutory appeal or post-trial motion, and all of Sommers’s original claims were resolved before he appealed, so the court declined to remand the case to allow Sommers to amend his complaint.
Lastly, the court denied Sommers’s attorney fees request because he recovered nothing in district court and the matter was affirmed. The court also denied MPR’s attorney fees request for failure to cite C.A.R. 39.1 or any other legal or factual bases for an award of appellate attorney fees.
The judgment was affirmed.