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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Behind a Desk
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    98,846

    Default Re: Overpaid Employee Wrongfully Held 100% Accountable

    Quote Quoting cbg
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    ...and Mississippi has quite possibly the weakest wage and hour laws in the US.
    Correct. From what I can see it offers no statutory requirement for when a final paycheck must be paid, and imposes no restrictions on employer deductions from wages; although the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) would still apply.
    Quote Quoting christinalynn
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    New at job, office manager inaccurate with payroll info but won't admit fault.
    You presumably knew what you were supposed to earn, and should have had a pretty good sense of whether your paycheck was significantly higher than it was supposed to be. That appears to be the position that your employer is taking. Fault is beside the point -- if you're paid more than you've actually earned, even if it's 100% the fault of a H.R. employee, your employer can still require that you return the overpaid wages. For your to be repaying the money over a period of months, and to continue to owe money, it would appear that the overpayment was substantial.
    Quote Quoting christinalynn
    last paycheck and personal property has been retained by employer with Unacceptable written promisary demands for overpayment . What are my legal rights here?
    You have the right to your personal property. You may have to sue to have it returned.

    In terms of federal restrictions on deductions from wages, perhaps one of the employment gurus can point to something more recent than this; but that 2004 opinion suggests that overpaid wages can be deducted from a paycheck even if they reduce your pay below minimum wage.
    Quote Quoting Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Opinion FLSA2004-19NA
    Q1) Does the FLSA prohibit an employer from deducting compensation from an employee’s paycheck (without the employee’s permission) in order to reimburse itself for an overpayment inadvertently made to the employee in a previous pay check? The employee requested 75 hours of vacation in pay period one and was paid for them. The employee in fact had only 32 hours available and reported it to the department. When the employee was paid for the next pay period, 43 hours pay were deducted.

    A1) It has been our longstanding position that where an employer makes a loan or an advance of wages to an employee, the principal may be deducted from the employee’s earnings even if such deduction cuts into the minimum wage or overtime pay due the employee under the FLSA. An employer may not, however, make an assessment for administrative costs or charge any interest payment that brings the employee below the minimum wage. See Field Operations Handbook, 30c10; opinion letters dated March 20, 1998, and November 16, 1977 (enclosed). Thus the amount the department chooses to recoup in the next pay period is at the department’s discretion. It does not matter whether the deduction was made in the next pay period or several pay periods later.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    24,521

    Default Re: Overpaid Employee Wrongfully Held 100% Accountable

    I am not aware of anything Federal that changes the above, but stand by for DAWW who has been my go-to person for payroll issues ever since Patty died and in some instances even before. State law could be more restrictive than this but as indicated, Mississippi has very weak wage and hour laws; it is unlikely in the extreme that they have implemented anything above the Federal.

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