Georgia Employment Legal Questions

If a non-exempt employee is performing work and the employer knows or should know if it, the employer must pay the overtime.  If the work is against company policy, the employer can discipline the employee.   But if someone is doing the work of a ceo, is this person an exempt employee under the admin exemption?  Perhaps.  But if a mail clerk or secretary is going the work of the CEO for a week, that employee should still be eligible to be paid their overtime wages.  Sometimes work has to be done, so employees do their job and put in extra hours for the benefit of the company or the person's own position.  If the employee was exempt or in an exempt position, then working overtime would of course not entitle the person to premium pay.  If the employee was an hourly paid employee, even if not premium pay, still the employee worked hours and should be paid for the hours.  If there's an express written policy that says all overtime work is prohibited, again, if an employee violates that provision, the company better disclipline the employee, still pay the time though.  Cannot reap the benefit of the employee's time and act like it was just free to the company.  But denying the pay, and subjecting yourself to liquidated damages, which you may now owe anyway, is not a good business decision.  The FLSA will require you to pay overtime on the next paycheck or payperiod, or liquidated damages are owed.  Again, if an exempt employee, then there's no entitlement under the FLSA.  If there's some employment agreement, that employee may have a contract that says he or she is paid $30 per hour for all hours, that employee may have a claim for breach of contract if they worked and did not get paid for all the hours.  Any further questions, since you are a company it seems like, then you should 100% consult an employment lawyer or law firm as soon as possible.  I suggest you review all your pay practices to determine if employee or more employees past and present are owed compensation for overtime hours worked.  ... Read More

Dear Ms. Blackshear 1. You can get your unemployment if you were involuntarily terminated through no fault of your own. If you were in fact "laid off," you are involuntarily terminated through no fault of your own. If you have not received any discipline, warnings, etc, and if you have not disobeyed any rule or direct order or done (or failed to do) any thing warranting your termination, you will receive the unemployment benefits. They can contest the benefits saying that you were fired for willful disregard of your employer's directions, rules, or standares. But they would have the burden of proving that willful disregard. To prove it they would have to show (a) that they had a rule, policy or standard; (b) that you knew about the rule, policy or standard; and (c) that you intentionally or knowingly disregarded the rule, policy or standard. 2. Assuming that your employer is covered by the FLSA (also known as the "wage hour laws") (most, but not all-are covered), and assuming you are not exempt from coverage under the FLSA, their failure to pay you for all the time you have worked would be a violation of the law. If you have been working hours for which the Company has not paid you - and they knew you worked those hours, they may be liable to you for backpay and liquidated damages (My firm handles a lot of these cases.) You can win double the amount of unpaid wages -and they have to pay your attorneys fees. And they have to pay your attorneys fees. An employer cannot require an employee to waive their fights under the FLSA.. The agreement itself would be invalid. However, depending on the language in the "waiver" they might have you admitting that you have informed them of all the time that you worked, and that they have paid you in full for all the hours that you have worked including any overtime that may have accrued. If it says that, you may have a hard time winning a subsequent FLSA claim.  3.  To advise you further about whether you should sign the waiver of rights, I would need to see the waiver itself, and you would need to hire me to advise or represent you. Respectfully, Michael A. Caldwell 404-979-3154 ... Read More

Your employer cannot withhold wages that you have earned unless you owe the employer money advanced to you that remains unpaid, or unless you had a contract that provides for such withholding. How much is owed to you and for what time period? When was your last paycheck supposed to be delivered to you if you had not terminated your employment? Do you have property belonging to the employer?   Michael A. Caldwell 404-979-3154... Read More

I would need to know a lot more about your status as a "contracted employee." If you are an employee, you may be covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The FLSA requires that you be paid for all the time you work plus 1.5 times your hourly rate for all time that you work in excess of 40 hours in a pay period. Many employers attempt to circumvent this law by calling the employee an "independent contractor." There are many technicalities about this law and its coverage, and I would need to know much more about your job and your employer to advise you more coherently. These are types of cases that our firm does frequently. When we succeed (which is most of the time) the employer has to pay our fees, not our clients. True independent contractors are not covered by thw FLSA and must depend on their contracts. If you are a genuine indpendent contractor and if your contract does not permit the employer to deduct an hour from your pay for lunch, then you would have a simple contract claim. If you would like to discuss this you may call me at (404)979-3154 Michael A. Caldwell... Read More

I would need to read the employment contract that you signed to give you any competent advice on any contractual restrictions to your resignation. The actual words make the difference. Also, if they breached the contract by not giving you pay increases (again, it matters what the contract actually says) they cannot successfully sue you to enforce the contract that they broke first. However, without a contract you are employed at will, you can be terminated at will; and you can quit at will. They must pay you in full for any time that you actually worked, regardless of their file close out requirements. You really should get a lawyer to help you with this one. You can reacme at (404)979-3154. Michael A. Caldwell... Read More

The employer likely will claim that you are an independent contractor who is not covered by Georgia WrokersComp. statutes. You are not. Your work is an inherent part of the employer's services - not external to it. Your investment in the job is miniscule compared to the employer's. You are subject to the employer's control and supervision. You are not in a job classification that usually is performed by independent contractors such as lawyers, doctors, etc. Your employer is required to carry workers comp insurance to cover you. If it fails to do so it becomes the insurer. You are entitled to all of your medical expenses and a replacement of a part of your wages since your injury. Our firm does not handle workers comp. cases. If you are in Atlanta or North Georgia the best workers' comp plaintiff's attorney is J. Franklin Burns ( (404) 303-7770) in Atlanta. If you are in Perry or South of it, the best is John Christy ((478) 987-9000) in Perry.  Please give them a call and tell them that I recommended that you contact them.   Michael A. Caldwell 404-979-3150... Read More

I have reviewed your lawyers.com request.  I need to know the following in order to assist you: 1. What is the name of your employer? 2. Do you have a copy of their Retirement Plan documents ?(If not, you have to ask them to give it to you; and they have to supply it to you. Put your request in writing and send it to their personnel or human resouces office.) 3. When did you retire? 4. What did they give you as the reason you are not getting your benefits?   Michael A. Caldwell michaelcaldwell@dcbflegal.com  ... Read More

Your best bet is to deprive the supervisor and the company of the value of your services by finding another employer who will value them properly. This doesn't sound like the kind of company or sort of people that you should be working with. There are a lot of other jobs available out there.... Read More

"ON CALL" PAY is a little more complicated than regular time. If you are a non-exempt employee and you actually work more than 40 hours for an employer covered by the FLSA, then you are entitled to overtime premium (150% of your regular hourly rate of pay) for all of the time you work after 40 hours. "On call" time is not companeable unless the circumstances or requirements of the on-call time severely restrict your ability to use the on-call time for your own purposes away from the workplace. But otherwise, if you are not called in to work, you are not entitled to be any pay for the "on call" time. ... Read More

Probably you do not have a case. Unless you have a contract providing otherwise, an employer is free to terminate you for any reason it deems adequate. He cannot terminate you because of your race, color, religion, gender, etc., or because you made a discrimination claim under federal law. But apart from unlawful discrimination or retaliation, he is free to terminate you. Severance pay is not required regardless of the length of your service, unless you have a contract providing for it.  ... Read More

This depends upon your employer's rules. In Georgia, for instance, the employment relationship is "at will." (Tennessee's is probably the same.) That means an employer can fire a person for any reason or no reason - and the employee can quit for any reason, or no reason. The employer has the right to establish the rules of behavior for its workplace. As long as the employer does not enforce such rules or standards in an illegally-discriminatory way (i.e., this means to base the enforcement decision on your race, color, creed, religion, gender, age (if you're over 40, disability (if you're qualified for your job), status as a member of the armed forces oe veteran, or as retaliation for the exercise of federally protected rights, the employer is free to terminate you for any reason -unless you have a contract that limits the employer's right to do so.  ... Read More

I believe the answer would be in the handbook provision that defines how you acquire your PTO hours. If they are acquired as partial compensation for work that you already performed (as compared to alotting a certain number of paid vacation hours as available at the beginning of the calendar year-before you have done any work in the year,) then you have a reasonable argument that they are contractually required to pay you the hours you earned. the law hates forfeitures, so I think the employer might have to prove a valid factual and contractual reason for taking away the hours you already had earned. You could sue for the value of the hours in magistrate's court without a lawyer.    ... Read More

The information you provide in your question is not sufficient for me to provide an answer. Legally, an employer is not required to keep the most senior employee in a layoff situation. However he cannot lawfully choose you for layoff if his reason for selecting you as opposed to a co-worker is an illegal reason (e.g. race, religion, gender, etc.) To answer your question more I would need to know what the employer's reason for selecting you was.... Read More

The hourly wage rate for all employers covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act  Columbus and every other city is $7.25/hour. If the employer is not covered by the federal law, it is by the state minimum wage rate which is $5.25/hour.  Waitresses are often "tipped employees." There is a special "tip credit" that is available to employers of employees who normally receive tips. These employers can count the tips the tipped employees receive as a credit toward the pay that is due employees for all straight time (i.e. non-overtime) hourly wages that are due except for $2.13 per hour. In other words, if you are a tipped employee the employer only needs to pay you $2.13 per hour, provided that the tips you receive each week make up the difference between $2.13/hour and $7.25/hour ($5.12/hour) for each hour you work up to 40 hours in a 7 day period. If you don't make enough tips to make 5.12/ hour in tips, the employer cannot take the tip credit and must pay you the $7.25 for all hours up to 40. If you have to share your tips in a tip pool with  managers, supervisors, owners, or with employees who commonly are not tipped employees (e.g. order expediters, chefs, security guards, or other back of the house staff) the employer loses the benefit of the tip credit and has to pay you at least $7.25 for all the hours you work up to 40.  If the employer fails to comply he can be sued in federal court which will award the employee twice the amount that is owed to the employee, plus order the employer to pay the employee's attorney fees.  My firm handles all of these cases quite successfully. We collect our fees from the employer if we win. If we lose, we don't colelct our fees, so the employee is pretty well off under these arrangements. We would be happy to assist you. Michael A. Caldwell 404-979-3154      ... Read More

You can sue for breach of contract if they did not pay you what you were owed. The contract cannot be made retroactive to impose a penalty on you that didn't exist at the time your alleged "breach" of the agreement occurred. The law abhors penalties. While parties can include "liquidated damages" clauses in contracts where the damages are a rational estimate of the costs a party will incur because of the other's breach of the agreement, unless there is proof that there is an actual relationship between the "damages" and the actual value of the harm suffered by the non-breaching party, it will be treated as a penalty clause and it will not be enforced. We recently won a case in the court of appeals based on this same kind of contract clause. The new contract cannot be made retroactive to impose a penalty on you that didn't exist at the time your alleged "breach" of the agreement occurred --at least, not without your agreement or the agreement of your collective bargaining agent (if you are unfortunate enough to have one). The law abhors penalties. While parties can include "liquidated damages" clauses in contracts where the damages are a rational estimate of the costs a party will incur because of the other's breach of the agreement, unless there is proof that there is an actual relationship between the "damages" and the actual value of the harm suffered by the non-breaching party, it will be treated as a penalty clause and it will not be enforced. We recently won a case in the court of appeals based on this same kind of contract clause. Michael A. Caldwell 404-9779-3154... Read More

No this does not constitute a hostile work environment that would amount to illegal harassment. It may constitute unfair treatment - and even stupid treatment. However unfair and stupid are not illegal. A "hostile work environment" is not, in itself, illegal nor is harassment itself illegal unless the basis for the harassment is illegal (i.e., unless it is based on your race, gender, age, etc.). Favoritism toward a childhood friend may be unfair, but it isn't illegal. ... Read More