QUESTION
a person worked in our store is suing me
Asked on Aug 15th, 2015 on Labor and Employment - California
More details to this question:
Hello, We have a person that his dad wanted us to hire him as a box boy in our market. He had no experience and we refused but the guy started coming to our store frequently trying to show that he is interested and wanted to learn. He kept coming on and off for more than a month and then we decided to hire him to run the store when we are not there and pay him a fixed amount of $1500 a month till he learn how to run the store and after that we sell it for him in payment. After about three months we found that he is not serious and he gave us a hard time to do restacking so we let him go. Now he is suing us to pay him the minimum wage plus overtime even for the month that he was coming as a friend to eat with us.
1 ANSWER
Labor and Employment Attorney serving Fresno, CA
at
Fishman, Larsen & Callister
Update Your Profile
You can prevail in the case, but you face some challenges. Since you paid a salary, I doubt you kept track of hours worked. Thus, he can claim all kinds of hours and you would be required to produce evidence that he did not work as much as claimed. That can be difficult without a time card.
The employee can bring the lawsuit because he is not an exempt employee. Thus, he is entitled to overtime compensation after 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a workweek.
You have some other problems as well. He may assert claims for missed meal and rest periods. He could also claim that his paycheck stub did not meet the requirements of Labor Code section 226.
My advice is to seek the assistance of a lawyer who handles wage and hour cases.
Good luck.
Doug Larsen
Answered on Aug 17th, 2015 at 1:51 PM