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Forced into purchase of new vehicle

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henbob6

Member
It looks like the preview function deleted your thread. Please edit your original post with your question, or post it in the comments/reply section. Don't forget to include your state! (And if it's a lengthy story, please use paragraphs!) Thanks in advance.
 

ajleoso1

Junior Member
Fundraising llc employee bullying

My wife and I started working for a fundraising LLC in November of 2015. My wife was hired as the warehouse manager. I was hired on as a salesperson only to be working on Saturdays and or Sundays.
Are employer Drew up a Employment contract and we signed the contract into effect in February 2016. It stated my wife's responsibilities as warehouse manager and mine as a Salesman along with a bonus structure for the both of us.
We both are very thankful for the money that this fundraising company puts back into the schools across Colorado and because of that truly believed that we were working for good people with big hearts and at the same time putting back into Colorado education.

My wife's salery was 32500 per year taking into account she would have 7 weeks of little to no work with uninterrupted pay. She was to answer any and all phone calls from no later than 8 a.m. until no earlier than 5 p.m. 7 days a week. Deliver the occasional oddball items and mattresses. Collate Flyers delivery mailers to the post office stay in touch and assist in Communications with the feeder schools that fed into the high schools where we had our sales. Unload inventory and Assist in the staging of items to be delivered. Work the sales days entering the client's information and Order into the computer. Assembly and placement of advertisement signs for next week's sale on Friday after 5 p.m. and the removal of the signs each night after the sale ended. Many other items were tacked on to her to-do list as we came into the busy season.
My responsibilities were to help set up and break down the showroom at the high school each weekend day and be a sales person on the floor from approximately 7:45 until 7:45 on nearly all Saturdays and many Sundays from February until June.
So certain that this business would not take advantage of us we actually invested in a pickup truck to help with the Oddball and occasional deliveries that quickly turned into a 2500 miles a month business truck delivering mattresses and other items across Colorado sometimes with only a 20-minute notice or better yet finding out at the end of a 12-hour shift that we needed to deliver several mattresses to customers in towns nearby and then come back to the town we had the sale to pick up our signs. We have record of our hours worked and are Miles traveled along with Google Maps timeline to show that yes we did work at times 16 - 17 hours in a day. Every weekend I would speak with my boss about the mileage on our vehicle and his lack in timely payment of our bonuses if not our entire checks and that it was costing us because of insufficient fund charges. He would sweet talk and say he was working on some type of gas card or purchasing an actual business vehicle and as our busy season started, we were working 36 hours or more from 5pm friday until early morning monday with my wife's phone starting sometimes as early as 6 a.m. with business-related calls and if she didnt answer them quickly she would recieve messages from the owner asking if she was returning their calls.
Our trucks transmission went out on our way to a sale with tge computer and supplies we needed for the days sale. Luckily I happen to have a scooter in the bed of the truck and was able to transport all the necessary items to the school for the sale that day and carried on thinking that the owner would at least loan or assist with the repair of the truck considering that after putting near 7000 miles in three months delivering the coddball" items and under 300 in personal miles on it. (At this point my wife and I were both putting in well over 40 hours a week and ecen though we had set a pay day, our boss would sometimes forget to pay our bonuses and take weeks to get the figure for them. We were barely making ends meet didnt have time to find another job and too scared to lose the one he have even though it had consumed all our personal time. Instead of doing that he told us to buy a better truck or find a new job because we would have to have a truck to deliver tge beds (he hired us before we owned a truck) It was only because of this that I found out because we were using our truck for business our insurance wouldnt help with the repair. When I told him about that, I was suprised to find out that he already knew and said he would pay the diff for the insurance but never did.
Also the owner's job now consisted of placing the factory orders after each sale and meeting with the school boosters once before each sale. He actually left the country just after the largest sale in his history leaving my wife to coordinate everything alone, as I was out of state because of a family emergency, with little to no contact from him, no other help, and only 5 or 6 months experience.
Then we broke the record again just a week or two later! That should have been beginning the 7 week paid break and my wife's pre approved scheduled family reunion...... he tells us he is leaving for montana about a WEEK PRIOR to the and we need to be at the warehouse to recieve stage and help deliver the beds. After discussing the timing and his approval for the reunion he said wasnt much he could do as he'd be in Montana and then left for a few weeks without paying our bonus so our phone was shut off. So he was wanting us to go to a wifi hotspot like McDonalds or Walmart to answer calls and access info online using our laptop. We worked nearly 24 hours straight receiving the beds and staging them for delivery so that we could make it to the family reunion a day later than planned.... that is only the tip of the iceberg.... he had stopped paying me for extra time other than the day of the sale yet still requested that I work insisting thatmy hours were part of my wife's salary. however that would bring us for below minimum wage. We have hours worked recorded and he does not we have our GPS locator that recorded our deliveries and prove the hours devoted to his business. My wife would have only had one week we're she wouldn't have put in full time hours and that week he decided to let her go and of course did not pay her. When I requested my final pay he refused unless I would sign an agreement stating that i had been paid in full and would not take action against him. Small claims court is far too small for the damages done and we can't afford an attorney.....
Because of the way that the business is run I believe that the LLC has no assets and uses the customers money to purchase the beds from the factory I'm worried that he would dissolve the company. I'm not exactly sure if I'm posting this new right spot but if anyone would be interested in just pointing me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it thank you for your time
 

eerelations

Senior Member
Because both you and your wife's jobs appear to be exempt, your former employer was legally free to require both of you to work as many hours as he wanted you to work, without additional compensation to either of you. (Unless of course your employment contracts specifically prohibited this - more on this in a bit.)

Regarding business-related mileage, insurance and vehicle maintenance costs, employers in Colorado are not legally required to reimburse their employees for these. However, your former employer may be obliged to reimburse these if this was agreed-upon in your written employment contracts. (Again, more on this in a bit.)

The only cause of action I see in your post is regarding you and your wife's final pay. If I'm correct in understanding that neither of you received this, you both should file wage claims with either your state or the federal DOL.

Finally (this is the "in a bit" part), if your employment contracts clearly either limited you and your wife's daily and weekly working hours, or stated clearly that you would receive extra compensation for working hours above the amount of X, then you need to have an attorney review said contracts in full. If the attorney believes that your former employer violated the contracts, you may have a cause of action to sue your former employer in civil court for breach of contract.

This goes for the mileage, insurance and vehicle maintenance costs too. If your contracts clearly state that your former employer would reimburse you for some/all of these expenses, then you need to have an attorney review said contracts in full. If the attorney believes that your former employer violated the contracts, you may have a cause of action to sue your former employer in civil court for breach of contract.
 

ajleoso1

Junior Member
Thank you for your in depth response. Why do you believe we are exempt? Is it because he is too small a business? Is there somewhere I can get better information about employment law for small business?
In Colorado's advisement bulletins for employment law it states that all employees must be paid for their hours suffered or permitted to work whether they are required to or not. And after going through the exemption categories and requirements to meet the exemption. I don't believe that either of us fit any of the Executive, Administrative, professional, or outside sales requirements. I have studied and studied to the best of my ability any and all employment law for Colorado but I've been able to get my hands on however I have no experience and am just seeking free advice.
I guess that what I'm getting at is I greatly appreciate your advice and the thoroughness of your response and I'm only asking questions so that I can understand.
 

eerelations

Senior Member
Exempt vs non-exempt has nothing to do with the size of the business. Exempt and non-exempt rules apply the same to small businesses as they do to larger businesses.

Your wife's job is exempt because she was a manager. Management jobs are exempt.

I assumed your job was exempt because it seemed to be primarily concerned with sales. If you disagree with this, I recommend you contact your state or the federal DOL and ask them to determine whether or not your job was exempt.
 

ajleoso1

Junior Member
My wife held the title of warehouse manager, however she was the only person in the warehouse. It's my understanding that to fall into an exempt catagory that you would need to supervise at least 2 fulltime employees..... there was no one below her at all. The "warehouse" is actually two large storage spaces where we would store our products until delivery. And she would unload 70+ mattresses, box springs, frames, etc by hand. sometimes twice a week and stage them for delivery by hand each week. With no employees to deligate any responsibility to, the title can not exempt her if she isnt managing anything. And with so much physical labor we were general laborers not any exec or administrative exempt employees. And how does 1 woman deliver a king mattress to the third floor of a house? She doesn't, our boss would tell her to ask me to help and when i went to him with my hours, that i have record of him asking me to work he told me that was included in my wifes salery..... He is a crooked person and in no way by colorado law do we fall under exempt unless there is something Ive missed. I was paid only some of the bonuses that were in the employment contract between he and I and never did that go anywhere near 50% of my earnings so do not qualify as an exempt salesman in Colorado.

And again please do not think that I'm stating something as fact but only what I know could be true from what I've read and I know that each state is different on their labor laws and I am greatly appreciated the time that you are spending working with me on this
 

ajleoso1

Junior Member
So then if I am correct about our exempt status and my wife and I have record of all hours worked including notifying him about the hours we were working. His refusal to give me what he believes my last paycheck should be unless i sign a paper stating that I am satisfied with my pay. And knowing that he hasnt kept ANY RECORD of our hours worked because he didnt feel he needed to and our contract does NOT state that the salery would include any and all hours necessary. Do you think we have a case?

In the state of Colorado the most a small claims court in the ward is $7,500. The most the labor board can order is $7,500. $15,000 is far less than what I believe we can prove that we worked.... but not sure if it would be enough to consider paying for an attorney. Colorado law states that small claims and/or the Wage and Hour division can award double the owed wages but only up to 7500 in each case and i believe we are closer to 24000 in unpaid wages alone.... that is not including the unpaid bonuses and i took photos of of order sheets from most all our sales once I realized he was trapping us into this job because we rarely had time to sleep much less find a job elsewhere while he and his wife traveled to the canary islands, ireland, and across the nation only returning to attend salesdays and sluffing all work into our laps while not paying us when scheduled. Once he knew we were fighting to keep our lights on and couldnt quit because we couldnt get out of the hole he caused it got worse and worse because I believe he was trying to force us to quit. The amount of work that we put into his company is truly superhuman sometimes starting at 5pm on friday, getting an hour of sleep on friday and saterday nights and not getting to lay down until 10 or 11 on sunday night......
 

eerelations

Senior Member
Before you can do anything about getting any money, you need a formal ruling on whether or not you and your wife's jobs were exempt. The only places you can get that are either the state or federal DOLs. You won't need an attorney to do that, just contact one or the other DOL.

After you've gotten your rulings, and if said rulings are in your favour, then you should speak to an attorney about suing for what's owed to you if you believe what's owed is larger than what the DOLs can get for you.

Really, at this point this is all you can do.
 

ajleoso1

Junior Member
Thank you so very much for your help.... I have been in limbo for the past couple weeks and hadn't been able to get anyone to point me in the right direction. THANK YOU!
 

eerelations

Senior Member
And keep in mind that you would be suing separately. You have said you and your wife are owed at least $24,000 together - separately the amounts will be smaller and much closer to the $7,500 max you could each claim at the DOL.
 

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