Can an Employer Demand You Repay a Bonus Received Before You Give Notice

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Quoting Boston75

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i think my boss and i had two different ideas about what the bonus was about. i asked and wrote in emails back in august that i wanted a pay raise to $XXX and i was only being paid @XXX at the time. he said he could provide an educational bonus since i am in school for my masters and i continuously said i do not want or need an educational bonus, i would rather have this money spread out on my paycheck on a per month basis so that it is a part of my salary.

we had different ideas about the bonus and what it meant. i wanted that money as part of my salary, it was paid as a bonus, and now it is being claimed that since i didnt stay while i was in school (i just started in september) that i owe the money back.

again, i never wanted it to be for school. on my paycheck it does not say school bonus. it just is a bonus.

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Now the story is changing. I just don't believe it. And if this was about education, you would not be entitled to the bonus if you let the company.

what is there not to believe?

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Quoting Boston75

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what is there not to believe?

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we don't have the employers perspective here and your statements are ambiguous. It is not that anything is believable or not but simply that there are not enough facts to give you much of an answer.

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Quoting cbg

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Because if we take the OP's word, and there is no reason not to, the one-year provision was neither discussed nor agreed to until after the poster had given notice.

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Are you a revisionist? Read the original post of the OP.

Once again she wrote:

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it was basically just given to me so that I would stay at the company

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How ambiguous is that?

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Quoting cbg

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Because if we take the OP's word, and there is no reason not to, the one-year provision was neither discussed nor agreed to until after the poster had given notice.

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and it comes down to what I said a few minutes ago:

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now, to your benefit, the employer can make a demand for the money but if you refuse, the employer is relegated to suing you and proving his argument in court. If he refuses to sue, you keep the money. If he loses in court, you keep the money.

If he wins, obviously you will be repaying him the money

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it matters not who is believable or not.

my apologies if the original post was unclear, i didnt know how much detail was needed. i could write pages about this and tried to keep it brief. i wasn't expecting to get so many replies!

the second posting is more clear, i agree. but it still remains true that no agreement was signed and i said several times that the bonus should not be for education that it should be an increase in my monthly salary.

whatever it was for, if you had NO intentions of leaving a company at a certain timepoint and your boss gave you $4000 direct deposit, it would probably not be turned down.

Okay, let's get to the bottom of this.

OP, when was the FIRST time that your employer indicated in ANY way that the bonus was predicated on your staying with the company for ANY length of time?

If different, when was the FIRST time that your employer indicated to you that it was predicated on your staying with the company for a year?

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Quoting jk

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given this latest statement I believe there was no meeting of the minds regarding the contract underlying the payment. As such, the employer would have a right to rescind the contract and demand repayment of the money.

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I think that would be easier if the money were not paid out, and the employee were claiming that the money was still due. Jumping the gun and issuing a bonus, then trying to argue, "I thought it was contingent on his staying longer, but he didn't have the same understanding", puts you in a bad position -- as an employer, the sophisticated party in the transaction and the party that defines the terms, you're likely to be the party held responsible for any ambiguity in the agreement.

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Quoting jk

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now, to your benefit, the employer can make a demand for the money but if you refuse, the employer is relegated to suing you and proving his argument in court. If he refuses to sue, you keep the money. If he loses in court, you keep the money.

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And if this is an incorporated business, save for in small claims court (where other issues arise, including giving up the opportunity to appeal) he will need to hire a lawyer.

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Quoting budwad

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First, I am not speaking of at-will states here. I am speaking of at-will termination of an employment contract.

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The concept of at-will employment is the same, whether we're speaking of the notion in an individual case or if we're speaking more broadly of the default nature of the employment relationship under state law.

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Quoting Boston75

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my apologies if the original post was unclear, i didnt know how much detail was needed. i could write pages about this and tried to keep it brief. i wasn't expecting to get so many replies!

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We don't need pages, although sometimes small details can make a huge difference. The most you can ever get from a forum of this type is a strong sense of what might happen, because we typically only have one side of the story and don't have any way to investigate or verify facts.

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Quoting Boston75

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the second posting is more clear, i agree. but it still remains true that no agreement was signed and i said several times that the bonus should not be for education that it should be an increase in my monthly salary.

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You didn't initially mention anything about education. I'm wondering if the employer was trying to structure this as some sort of educational reimbursement for possible tax advantage. When you looked at your payroll records from the check in which you received the money, how was the money described? (e.g., as wages, as a bonus, as an advance, or in some other manner.)

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the second posting is more clear, i agree. but it still remains true that no agreement was signed

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while it becomes harder to prove a verbal agreement, unless the law requires a written agreement, whether you signed anything or not is irrelevant.

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and i said several times that the bonus should not be for education that it should be an increase in my monthly salary.

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and as I said; you do not get to determine what the payment was for nor the rules imposed on recieving it. If you did not like the terms, you had the right to refuse it.

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whatever it was for, if you had NO intentions of leaving a company at a certain timepoint and your boss gave you $6000 direct deposit, it would probably not be turned down.

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ah, so now you are arguing that you accepted it merely because you thought you would not be leaving. That gives me reason to suspect you are fully aware of the purpose of the bonus and are simply trying to find a way to keep it.

so, you can either repay it or keep it. If you return it, it's done. If you keep it, the boss can either go. Ok fine and let it go or he can sue you. If he sues you, he has to prove his claim. You would then attempt to defend your position. The judge decides.

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And if this is an incorporated business, save for in small claims court (where other issues arise, including giving up the opportunity to appeal) he will need to hire a lawyer.

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accepted but that doesn't change anything I said. It simply means there would be an additional cost in fighting for the money. Who knows, maybe he is the kind of guy that would spend $10,000 to try to win $100 simply because that is the kind of guy he is.

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Quoting jk

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accepted but that doesn't change anything I said.

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Right. It's supplemental information.