Colorado § 8-2-104 - Obtaining workmen by misrepresentation unlawful.

§ 8-2-104. Obtaining workmen by misrepresentation unlawful.

It is unlawful for any person, company, corporation, society, association, or organization of any kind doing business in this state, by itself or its agents or attorneys, to induce, influence, persuade, or engage workmen to change from one place of employment to another in this state, or to bring workmen of any class or calling into this state to work in any of the departments of labor in this state, through or by means of false or deceptive representations, false advertising, or false pretenses concerning the kind and character of the work to be done, or amount and character of the compensation to be paid for such work, or the sanitary or other conditions of the employment, or as to the existence or nonexistence of a strike or lockout pending between employer and employees, or failure to state in any advertisement, proposal, or contract for the employment that there is a strike, lockout, or other labor trouble at the place of the proposed employment, when in fact such strike, lockout, or other labor trouble then actually exists at such place, and it is deemed false advertisement and misrepresentation for the purposes of sections 8-2-104 to 8-2-107.

Source: L. 11: p. 486, § 1. C.L. § 4156. CSA: C. 97, § 71. CRS 53: § 80-4-4. C.R.S. 1963: § 80-11-4.

ANNOTATION

This section authorizes a claim for statutory fraud. Pittman v. Larson Distrib. Co., 724 P.2d 1379 (Colo. App. 1986).

No cause of action for misrepresentation where employee lived in Colorado before and after employment with defendant. Vaske v. DuCharme, McMillan & Assocs., Inc., 757 F. Supp. 1158 (D. Colo. 1990).

This section contemplates a strike, lockout, or other labor trouble that is in actual existence. The fact that the potential for such a dispute exists because a new collective bargaining agreement was being negotiated, combined with fact that potential employer told potential employees they were to be hired after new labor agreement was negotiated, does not allow individuals to claim that they were hired under false pretenses concerning employer's relationship with labor union. DeJean v. United Airlines, Inc., 839 P.2d 1153 (Colo. 1992).

Because plaintiff was unemployed at the time defendant offered employment, plaintiff was not a "workman" pursuant to statute. Schur v. Storage Tech. Corp., 878 P.2d 51 (Colo. App. 1994).

The elements of statutory fraud are the same as those for common law fraud, and, when the statements relied upon were mere predictions of future events rather than commitments or facts and were neither false when made nor made with the intent not to perform, there was no cause of action. Nelson v. Gas Research Inst., 121 P.3d 340 (Colo. App. 2005).

Applied in Roberts v. Conoco, Inc., 717 F. Supp. 724 (D. Colo. 1989).