Bonus After Termination

What is the name of your state? Office in MA, Live in NH, Corp office - NJ. I was what I feel is wrongfully terminated today, Dec 6. Nonetheless, I worked all year and feel that I have earned the performance bonus that is supposed to be part of my salary. When I asked my employer if I would be getting this and he said he did not know, he would have to ask. It would normally be paid out in February. I want to know if the company has a legal obligation to pay this to me. It is due to my hard work and dedication that they were so successful with this group this year. I have been with this company 5 years and have had excellent performance reviews up until this incident that was brought on by here-say. No hard evidence. They did give me a 10 week severance package but it made no mention of the bonus. I have not signed that yet, wanting to be sure I secure this first. I also want to see if I am legally allowed to stop the state withholding to Massachusetts since I reside in NH and there is no income tax in this state - I will not be legally responsible for those taxes at year end so I do not see why I would have to pay them out of my severance pay. Thanks for any advice.

Just as an FYI, the very large majority of people who feel they were wrongfully terminated, weren't. It's a term that is not very well understood.

Whether you are due the bonus under these circumstances depends entirely on the terms of the bonus agreement.

I'll let Pattytx answer the tax issue - she's better at that than I am.

Understood

I understand that most everyone that is let go feels that it was not their fault. Let's just say in my opinion, I was wrongfully terminated. There are always two sides and its my word against another. I know for a fact that I didn't lie, so in my opinion, it was wrong. Nevertheless, my bonus is an earned item for 2004 and I worked the whole year putting in MANY hours of overtime on a fixed salary, because if my group does well, I get a great bonus. I often travel for weeks away from my family. I have received maximum increases and only excellent marks on reviews over the last 5 years. I have been a dedicated employee and upon termination, my boss stated that this is one of the hardest things he ever had to do. Many people fought on my side - I feel lucky for that.. Now I just want my bonus, which I have earned and need to know if legally, I can get it..... ANYONE HAVE ANY INSIGHT???

OK, cbq, I'll bite.

If you want to submit a revised Massachusetts W-4, you can do so. However, your employer can take the allowable time to process it, and will have to send it to the state if it is required, based on what you claim on it.

The employer still should be reporting your wages to Massachusetts as required, so the income will still be on your W-2 as MA wages if they do it correctly, as most states require that compensation paid to out-of-state residents is allocable and reportable to the state in which the compensation was earned, not the state in which the employee resides, even if the employment relationship has been terminated.

In the legal sense, a "wrongful termination" means that it was ILLEGAL to term you for the reason that they did. It doesn't mean that you were treated unfairly or unjustly.

Ok

OK, I see your point. Well, they are an at will employer so I guess they can do whatever they want. Termination reason was that they said I bribed someone who walked off the job mad. I didn't do any such thing. I was his boss and they said I offered him "whatever he wanted". There is no proof except words of a disgruntled employee (the other guy)...who has a pending child pornography charge against him - not very credible....guess its just unfair. I still want my bonus!!!

Yes, I would agree that this is unfair, but it does not give you a wrongful termination case in the eyes of the law. It is possible to be unfairly terminated and still legally terminated.

If you want to understand why I'm making an issue of this point, read my response on this thread:

https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=208062

Sometimes semantics can be important.

I still can't give you any answer on the bonus other than my original one: It depends entirely on the terms of the bonus agreement.

Point taken

Thank you cbq. I appreciate your reference. I will eliminate those words from the termination explanation....and just for the record, I am not planning to take any legal action against the company for this termination (although I would like it much better if their records did not say I was terminated for bribery, I feel its rather stupid). However, I will persue them for my bonus. It is part of my compensation, agreed upon when I took the job. I have learned that past employees have gotten theirs after leaving (not sure if they left on their own or if they were terminated by the company but I will find out). It has been just 24 hours and they have not gotten back to me regarding the matter. I need to know before I sign my severance agreement to be sure it does not release them from paying me that sum. I can not start receiving severance pay until I sign it, so I am trying to figure it out on my own in the short term - I have a family to support and it is Christmas.... I have called a few lawyers just to have the severance agreement reviewed and they must be awefully busy and not needing any money, because no one in Mass. has called me back yet....I did speak to a NH lawyer and he told me that I should find someone in Mass. because that is where the office I worked out of is - but the agreement says that they will go by NJ laws (that is where the corporate office is).....what do you think I should do about that? I just want someone to look the thing over and maybe help my by writing a letter regarding my bonus to HR if necessary. I have never had the need for a lawyer before so this is all new to me...

I can't refer you to a specific attorney - that's against the rules of most boards and I wouldn't do it anyway. But I know there's at least one big law firm in Boston which has offices in New Jersey - my best friend works for them (she's not an attorney, sorry - she works in their HR department) and I'm sure there are more.

There is a Find-A-Lawyer section elsewhere on this site - you can find it by looking at the top of this screen - and there's another one at www.attorneypages.com. I would suggest you look for a large firm with offices in both MA and NJ. Also, make phone calls. Do not send e-mails; most attorneys won't respond to those. I don't know where in MA you are but if you are anywhere near Boston (or Worcester, or Springfield, or any large city), you might try the walk-in approach.

Thanks

Thanks cbq. You've been very helpful. I did try the "lawyer find" on this web-site yesterday and kept getting an error message, like page not found. Might be my computer. I'll try the other one tonight.

Appreciate all your help and insight.

Many states and large cities also have a lawyer referral through the local Bar Association. You can get a short meeting with an attorney for very little money; then you can decide if you need/want to retain that attorney. In St. Louis, it was $30 (payable to the service, not the attorney) for a 30 minute meeting, and it was waived for SS, Disability, and WC cases. I got my WC attorney this way and I was very pleased.

Check the Yellow Pages under Attorneys for Lawyer Referral Service, usually attached to the local Bar Assoc.

Thank you!

Thank you pattytx. I really appreciate all the help!