Unpaid Wages, TWC Issues

[DrowningHere]

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

I started a job November 30, 2015, by April 25, 2016 I had to quit my job. It was a new consulting company that he was building and he was getting away from practicing law. I was his only employee, and I only worked part time. The first check that was not given to me was March 4th of 2016. He would at first blame it on the fact that his business credit card was stolen and he was working to get that corrected. By the time we rolled around to the next payday on March 18th I was starting to get suspicious. Still nothing. I had received some income tax money back, so I was not hurting, but I couldn't live off of that money for forever.

I would try to contact him on a daily basis and he would avoid responding. The only times that I did hear back from him was the two times that he actually had money to give to me. When that happened he paid me in cash, and each time was half of what I made in a regular check. By the time April rolled around I decided to sever ties on April 25th, 2016.

I filed a claim for unpaid wages with the TWC, but unfortunately he never notified them that he had an employee on the company he had created (which I recently found out was closed by the state due to his not paying taxes on it). He has ignored all attempts made by them to get in touch with him, so they are closing the case. I attempted to file for unemployment, but since they cannot verify that I worked for that company (once again because he ignores their calls and letters) they will not pay me any benefits.

I am trying to find employment at just about every place close by, unfortunately I am getting turned down left and right. I keep getting turned down by government agencies when I apply for assistance, but they will approve my daughter's claims that I have submitted, I can't afford the payments for health insurance through the health exchanges and I am in dire need of medical intervention.

I need to know what legal actions I can take at this point, how I can do it when I literally have no money, and how quickly I can get results and/or assistance that anyone may know of. I found out that on September 7, 2016 he was disbarred, but he is still carrying on like there is no change. I am at my wit's end and I am wanting him to not only pay for what is owed to me, but to also compensate for the time in-between. Please help me! Thank you for reading this.

 

[commentator]

The thing you should have done, of course, was stop working immediately when you stopped getting paid. You did a sort of volunteering your time thing for a while there, with him throwing you a small pittance ever so often. And it put you in a spot where I suspect you were running up a huge amount of debt to survive. Your only recourse now is to find another job and move on. That you are having a hard time finding a job, or that you did not qualify for unemployment because he was not a covered legitimate employer who was paying in on you are no one's fault, just a bad situation. That you used to be, six months or so ago, in a bad situation where you continued to work for a disreputable jerk too long isn't going to pay the bills now.

It's remarkably common. But sad truth is, if you are not able to work, which you imply with your "need for medical intervention" disability is your only option, and it takes a long time to get you cannot find another job at all, you are simply going to have to either certify for public assistance (why do they keep turning you down?) or get help from relatives or something else. It's probably unlikely that you can hire an attorney on contingency, can sue this bird, and can recoup these lost wages when it sounds like you are in line with a bunch of other people he owes money too. The mills of the justice system turn very slowly when it comes to dealing with relatively low level fraudsters like this former boss of yours.