what's the law, if any, requiring employer to provide record of money owed(to employe

[juntjoo]

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

before i ask for my money i want to have an official record at least of what my employer intends to pay me. my records I would have to hunt for with my bank, but right now I'm just working on getting my employer to cooperate to pay me back and so far just getting him to write me up a record of it is proving to be a challenge in itself.

does anyone have any advice as to what step i should take at this point, or know of any laws that i might want to know about to arm myself against an employer who might not be planning to pay me back, or just needs some encouragement?

 

[swalsh411]

Pay you back for what? Wages? Expense reimbursements? Bake sale proceeds?

More information is needed.

 

[juntjoo]

oh, wages. sorry. thanks

 

[swalsh411]

Ok so you worked and were not paid for time worked? You need to provide more information if you want a useful response.

 

[pattytx]

Agree, we don't have nearly enough information to say.

Why do you think he has not paid you what you are legally owed?

Having said that, if you are going to approach this guy regarding underpayment of wages, YOU need to state what wages were not properly paid. It's not his responsibility to go searching for the needle in the haystack.

 

[juntjoo]

he fell behind approximately 2 months because several factors, and actually, i don't think he doesn't want to pay me(us) back, but he doesn't know how to take the responsibility a person needs to take in his situation. he is just a very irresponsible and lazy person. you can't even talk to this person face to face about something serious like this. you end up wanting to smack him. he can't look you in the face and talk straight. he's just an impossible character to deal with. anyway, so yeah, any other details you guys need?

 

[pattytx]

Your legal recourse is either a complaint with the federal Dept. of Labor (which, although it enforces full overtime pay, it enforces regular pay of minimum wage only) or file a small claims action in the Florida courts. YOU are the one who is going to have to claim a specific amount. You don't keep a check register or other record of your paychecks? You don't keep your bank statements that are mailed to you? You can't get online access to check your account history?

I never understood why people continue to work when they aren't getting paid.

 

[juntjoo]

oh, and so he has no responsibility to provide to me records if I request them? well, nevermind the records for a moment, doesn't he still need to pay me what he owes me? and assuming so, is it my job to tell him how much he owes me? would i need to tell anyone other than a judge, talking about who's responsibility to determine the number he owes me? thanks

 

[pattytx]

No, he does not, not in your state. If you're going to pursue this, you are going to HAVE to claim XX amount. It's your job to determine the amount of unpaid wages you have, not his.

You can't file a wage claim or a civil suit for "whatever he owes me". That's not how it works. If you aren't positive to the penny, that's OK, make your best estimate. If the employer wants to dispute the amount, he can do so and let the DOL or the judge decide. However, I suggest you start getting your records together pronto, because the less documentation that YOU have of what you were or were not paid, the more likely the judge will be (in a civil suit, at least) to go with the employer (or at least it would be a toss-up).

 

[juntjoo]

as far as records i could recover, it would be only of cashed checks during the period of when he stopped being able to pay on time. so at that time we would have our time card slips and if i remember correctly, he'd hand us the check stubs of what he wasn't able to pay us. but then when he was able to start paying us after about 2 months, he'd pay us for the 1st pay period(1 week) he missed, the first week he couldn't pay without paying us for the present pay period we were in, and continue paying from there at that time, and then the pay checks didn't follow that order any more and he was paying us for the present pay periods we were in but still owed us from before,... so as you can see it got complicated.

so, i can show from cashed checks from him when i was getting paid and i have records of hours worked. so i guess my claim would be for such hours "unpaid" and hope that the judge takes my word for it and requires my boss to either pay me what i'm claiming he owes or show proof of the check(s) cashed for pay periods in question? is that basically how it's going to go down? thanks again for alls ya'll's help.

 

[pattytx]

Yeah, now you've got it. BTW, you can claim up to at least double damages in a civil claim. How much in wages (estimated) are we talking about?

 

[juntjoo]

8 weeks @ 33 hrs roughly @ 7.25/hr. i'm not going to do the math again, but i believe it lies around 2g's.

you know, i'm curious what happens after i'm awarded my money. will he be required in some way to pay me? what happens at that point if any of you know? thanks

 

[juntjoo]

okay, i over-estimated a bit. i'll say atleast 1600 he owes me.

 

[Zigner]

I will be your responsibility to collect on any judgment...

 

[juntjoo]

so the point of going to court is to collect a "judgement"? what is the point of that? how does it make it any easier for me to collect my money? you know, i've just been assuming the right course of action is to take him to court, but i am not sure. IS this the best way to get my money back, and yes, legally of course.