The court, in a memorandum decision, upheld a Kanawha Circuit Court ruling ordering Themeworks Inc. of High Springs, Fla., to pay 33 employees more than $222,000 in back wages.

According to documents filed with the court, Themeworks was awarded a $2.28 million subcontract by the primary contractor for the state museum project, Design and Production Inc. of Lorton, Va., to do scenic work in the facility. Themeworks installed miniature trees and artificial rock formations, and painted and finished various facades, including the train depot and the company store.

Non-salaried employees on the project were paid at rates between $10 to $20 an hour, documents show. However, a Division of Labor audit in February 2009 concluded that the employees should have been paid the state prevailing wage as carpenters, at $38.06 an hour.

For most of the employees, the payments ordered to comply with prevailing wages are nearly double the wages they were originally paid for work on the state museum, records show.

For example, one employee who was paid $4,339 for 215 1/2 hours of work is to receive an additional $8,509 payment to comply with the prevailing wage order, court records show.

In the appeal, attorneys for Themeworks raised several issues, including claiming that the employees were artisans and designers, not construction workers, and not subject to the prevailing wage law.

"Themeworks has performed the same type of work in a variety of other states, including California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, and had never previously been required to pay prevailing wages on the work it performed," attorneys Sarah Stewart and Charles Poundstone stated in the appeal to the high court.

The attorneys also argued that Themeworks was not contractually obligated to pay prevailing wages, since the subcontract with Design and Production Inc. was executed in Virginia, and subject to Virginia wage laws.

They also argued that state Division of Labor Commissioner David Mullins had erred in assigning the highest applicable wage rate classification for the employees as carpenters.

In its unanimous decision, Supreme Court justices concluded that Mullins was "not clearly wrong" in defining the museum work as a construction project, noting that the prevailing wage law broadly defines construction as any "improvement, enlargement, painting, decorating or repair of any public improvement let to contract."

The justices also said that, based on the arguments and court record, "we cannot conclude that the commissioner was clearly wrong in finding that the carpentry classification applied to the work performed by Themeworks' employees on the state museum."

The decision also concludes the commissioner had authority to enforce the prevailing wage law, regardless of any contractual arrangement between contractor and subcontractor.

Under rules changes that went into effect in December 2010, the Supreme Court must provide a written explanation, or memorandum decision, any time it refuses to grant an appeal of a lower court ruling.

The $17.6 million state museum opened in the lower level of the Culture Center in June 2009, after the project had languished for years.

In June 2004, workers demolished the old state museum, in the same location, and the space sat vacant until work on the new museum got underway in May 2008.