AGO 1990-007.

• Case Date: February 26, 1990
• Court: Connecticut

Connecticut Attorney General Opinions 1990. AGO 1990-007. February 26, 1990 Opinion No. 1990-007Hon. Howard B. Brown Commissioner of Banking 44 Capitol Avenue Hartford, CT 06106 Dear Commissioner Brown: In your letter of June 1, 1989, you requested our advice on a matter involving wage executions on employees' paychecks. Specifically, you asked, "'[w]hen a wage execution is served on the Office of the Comptroller, may this department issue, during the 20-day automatic stay provided in Section 52-361a(d) of the Connecticut General Statutes, the final paycheck of an employee who has terminated employment with this department[?]" We advise you that you should issue an employee's final paycheck under the circumstances described in your question. Conn. Gen. Stat. §52-361a defines the procedure by which a creditor may obtain a wage execution against a judgment debtor. Subsection (d) of this statute states in part: "On service of the execution on the employer, the execution shall automatically be stayed for a period of twenty days and shall thereafter immediately become a lien and continuing levy on such portion of the judgment debtor's earnings as is specified therein4)4B'D'D" (emphasis added). Subsection (g) of Section 52-361a further provides: "Any employer served with a wage execution, including the state and any municipality shall, upon expiration of the automatic stay of execution .....pay over to the levying officer such portion of the judgment debtor's nonexempt earnings as the execution prescribes4)4B'D'D" (emphasis added). To determine the meaning of these provisions, we follow certain fundamental principles of statutory construction. We must construe the words and phrases of a statute "according to the commonly approved usage of the language4)4B'D'D" . C.onn. Gen. Stat. §1-1(a). Furthermore, "[w]here a statute does not define a term, it is appropriate to look to the common understanding expressed in the law4)4B'D'D" Southington v. State Board of Labor Relations, 210 Conn. 549, 561, 556 A.2d 166, 172 (1989). In keeping with these rules, we note that "[t] he use of the word 'shall' by the legislature connotes that the performance of the...