Legal Question in Employment Law in Minnesota

Employer withholding mileage reimbursement for phone bills

I have not been reimbursed for mileage on my car for 7 months, a total of approx. $300. The financial director is withholding my reimbursement checks until the long-distance phone bills for my work site are paid. I have paid my portion of the bills, but another employee has not paid his portion. I am being held accountable for another employee's phone calls. I have the mileage reimbursement form, which implies a verbal agreement to pay $0.26 per mile on the 15th of every month. Driving clients around is a major part of my job. I have informed my manager that I will not transport clients in my car until I am reimbursed for past mileage and will be reimbursed for future mileage. I have left a few messages for the financial director over these months and finally yesterday she did call me. I asked what to do to resolve this. She said to get the phone bills paid. I told her that I will have a lawyer research the legality of this policy and that I should not be made responsible to make the other employee pay (I am not a manager). The third employee at this site has been reimbursed as normal and has not been told to make the other employee pay the phone bill to get reimbursed. I live in Wisconsin but work in Minnesota.


Asked on 2/20/03, 12:49 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Mark Mahoney Cassiani Law Office, Wise Shepherd Law Office

Re: Employer withholding mileage reimbursement for phone bills

Hello, your best best by far is to find some other person in the company to take this up with, perhaps if there is a Human Resources Department.

You have a valid point, but what if the employ. er gets aggravated and says you are fired. You may have some small chance to sue the employer to get the 300 they owe you, but you could do nothing about your job. The employer can fire you if they dont like your attitude, or the color of your shirt on a given day. Employment law is hell for the employee in Wisconsin and across the US in general. Again, if you can find someone else in the company with authority and good judgement, they will deal with that other employee, not you. Good luck, Mark J. Mahoney

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Answered on 2/20/03, 10:58 pm


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