Court won’t hear $ 15 wage law case

SEATTLE — The U. S. Supreme Court indirectly weighed in for the first time Monday on a $ 15- an- hour minimum wage, signaling it does not plan to stop the movement that is spreading across the nation, worker advocates say.

The justices refused to hear a challenge to Seattle’s law, which franchise owners said discriminates against them by treating them as large businesses. It comes as several other cities and a group of states, including California and New York, have started to phase in a $ 15 minimum wage in recent months as the cost of living keeps rising.

The Supreme Court did not comment on its order, which allowed a lower- court ruling to stand. The 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in September that it did not believe the franchise association would succeed in its lawsuit and that the group was not persuasive in arguing that its members would be harmed.

State courts are considering several challenges to local minimum wage laws, which each take a slightly different approach, but no other cases are on their way to Supreme Court at this time, the National Employment Law Project said.

“The Supreme Court’s action makes clear that the courts are not going to step in to block the raises that America’s workers need,” said Paul Sonn, general counsel and program director of the group that advocates for employment rights for lowerwage workers.

New York’s law is being challenged in state court in a similar lawsuit brought by the fast food industry. Employers at Seattle- Tacoma International Airport have filed several legal challenges after the city of SeaTac, Wash., passed the first $ 15 wage in the U. S. The national minimum is $ 7.25 an hour.

Nearby Seattle closely followed, becoming one of the first cities to adopt a law in 2014 aiming for a $ 15 minimum wage. San Francisco changed its wage around the same time. Arkansas voters in 2014 approved raising the state’s minimum wage, which is now $ 8 an hour.

Seattle’s law gives small businesses employing fewer than 500 people seven years to phase it in. Large employers must do so over three or four years.