Legal Question in Business Law in Massachusetts

Compensation after volentary employment termination

I have been working for a cell phone comapany in sales for the last two years and 3 months. I have always had a good relationship with my owners and managers. Yesterday when I put my 2 weeks notice in, they accepted the fact that I was moving on. later in the day, I was taken aside and made aware that they were going to making some deductions from my last paycheck. The industry I am speaking of is cellular phones, and over the last 2+ years, I have accumulated roughly $800.00 in open invoices to my customers that they have not paid for. One of them went to a collections agency ($250.00), and the rest they are still trying to collect. They intend to charge me back and deduct $800.00 from my last paycheck. I am an employee, not an independent contractor. Is this legal?

Secondly, I have acrued 7 vacations day that I have not used. Is it within my legal right to be paid on vacation tipme that I earned? There is a section in the employee handbook refering to vacation time where they say they do not have pay employees for their vcacation time after leaviing the position. Is it within their legal right to withhold my vacation time as well.


Asked on 12/21/05, 8:27 am

2 Answers from Attorneys
Barry Levine Law Office of Barry R. Levine

Re: Compensation after volentary employment termination

The employee handbook addresses the issue of how accrued vacation time is handled. If it does not convert to cash upon separation, your employer is within its legal rights to withhold payment. However, that may be effected by whether or not you actually signed off on the employee handbook by acknowledging in writing that you had reviewed a copy and were aware of its content.

With respect to the holdbacks, did you work under a written contract? That would typically guide the manner in which uncollected contracts upon which commissions were already paid is handled. I agree with the other poster, if there is no contract, you should file a complaint with the AGs office for unpaid wages.

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Answered on 12/21/05, 4:54 pm

Re: Compensation after volentary employment termination

If you are on commission, they may have the right to charge the $800 against sales for calculating the commission, dependlung upon how they calculate commission, otherwise without anything in writing making you responsible for the $800 then no they cannot charge you back. You can contact the Attorney General's office for a complaint form.

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Answered on 12/21/05, 11:47 am


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