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Letter of termination / acceptance of resignation

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infocus

Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

When accepting an employee's resignation or when firing an employee, is a letter of termination legally required and/or advisable? What would be an example of such? And is the employee legally required to sign it? Can I as an employer withhold pay unless the document is signed?
 
Last edited:


Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

When accepting an employee's resignation or when firing an employee, is a letter of termination legally required
No
and/or advisable?
Not enough info.
What would be an example of such?
http://www.google.com
And is the employee legally required to sign it?
No
Can I as an employer withhold pay unless the document is signed?
No - and doing so can actually expose you to penalties.
 

swalsh411

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law) Can I as an employer withhold pay unless the document is signed?
Absolutely unequivocally NO. Especially in California which has very strict rules on when a terminated employee must be paid. If you employ people in California you need to be aware of these because there can be waiting time penalties.
 

infocus

Member
Thanks for the replies, especially the first response, very brief and to the point! I liked the google.com response. :)

I believe the employee has to be paid within 72 hours of termination. My question is, what if the employee gets paid at the normal billing cycle as everyone else, which is past 72 hours but not far off? Could the employee make some claim against an employer if it wasn't precisely within 72 hours? Who would calculate penalties and how?
 
I believe the employee has to be paid within 72 hours of termination. My question is, what if the employee gets paid at the normal billing cycle as everyone else, which is past 72 hours but not far off? Could the employee make some claim against an employer if it wasn't precisely within 72 hours? Who would calculate penalties and how?
Penalties for a few days different? Think thermal nuclear strike....
 

eerelations

Senior Member
The CA DLSE would calculate it. Trust me you don't want to be up against them!

However the above answer may be totally inaccurate based on your implications in your other thread. (Why have you separated your issue into two threads? Trying to confuse us so you get the answers you want to hear instead of the truth?)
 

swalsh411

Senior Member
Why don't you just comply with the law instead of figuring out how much it will cost you if you don't. It's not that much work to cut a manual payroll check and if it is then your processes are inefficient.
 

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
If the employee gave 3 days notice or more, final pay is due on the last day of employment. If they gave less, final pay is due within 72 hours.

Penalties for late pay can be that you end up paying the employee an extra day's pay for every day late. The CA DOL does not fool around when it comes to late pay. And in my experience with the CA DOL, they automatically take the employee's position over the employer until or unless the employer is proved categorically to be in the right, and even then it is with great reluctance that they let the employer off the hook. So it would be greatly to your benefit to pay the employee ON TIME.
 

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