Legal Question in Employment Law in Tennessee

Re: Changes to Employee Handbook

Your question is answered by two contrary answers in Tennessee law. First, Tennessee law is that an employer cannot change an employees pay after the fact. That is, if you are entitled to be paid $1000 for 1 week, after the week has passed the employer cannot pay you $800 and say that is all the pay to which you are entitled and hide behind the employment at-will defense.

The second point of Tennessee law is that an employer can change its handbook at anytime with or without notice. (This assumes that you have no other employment contract.)

One point at which these two principles intersect is when an employment is terminated and the question is raised as to whether the employee is to be paid for the accumulated sick and vacation time, or PTO (paid time off). Tennessee courts have resolved the dilemna in this situation by holding that if the handbook says you accumulate or are entitled to PTO, then it is an element of wages and must be paid upon the termination of employment. However, the courts have also said that this is an element that if the handbook says it is lost upon the termination of the employment relationship, then it is lost and not due to be paid.

I would expect that a portion of the answer to your question would lie in how this issue came to pass. If the relationship is continuing, then the handbook can be changed and you are not entitled to any sort of notice. Also, if the relationship is continuing and you are talking about 1 days wages it probably isn't worth disputing too much in the grand scheme of things. However, if this is how your employer conducts business, you may want to start looking for alternate employment.