Legal Question in Employment Law in Massachusetts

paying back unaccrued vacation time

I was working and living in Massacusetts for the past few years. I recently quit my job and moved back to NY, where I'm originally from. My employment was officially terminated from my previous job on June 29, 2003. A week later I received my final paycheck, in full.

Today I received a letter from my former job requesting that I pay back over $600 in vacation pay that I used but was unaccrued at the time when I used it.

My question is, what sort of legal ground do they have to stand on here?

My view is if they wanted that money they should have deducted it from my final paycheck, no?

All I know is, when I used to work in a bank, and if we gave a customer too much money by mistake, we could ''request'' that the customer pay us back, but we couldn't do anything about it if they refused to give it back, it was our error and we were out of luck. Maybe that was just the bank's policy, I'm not sure what sort of legal backing that has.

Any sort of advice would be appreciated here. If I have to pay it back I will of course, I'm just curious if I really have to since in theory it was their error by not deducting it from my final paycheck, which is what I was expecting them to do.

Thanks


Asked on 8/10/03, 1:22 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Nance Lyons Law Office of Nance Lyons

Re: paying back unaccrued vacation time

No one can keep money that was paid by mistake. Nor can any bank customer spend money erroneouly paid into their account. It's called unjust enrichment on the civil side and larcenty on the criminal side.

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Answered on 8/11/03, 12:08 pm


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