Worker was paid with 91,500 oily pennies: feds. Now company owes him much more
macon.com
macon.com
The whole case is mostly on CourtListener. The owner was fined not just for the pennies, but for willfully refusing to pay his employees for hours (and OT) worked. Compounding his problems, he attempted to represent himself pro se, in a case brought by the Secretary of Labor. He (and, I think, later, his attorney) got sanctioned for trying to obstruct discovery. The last motion filed in the case before the verdict against him was him attempting to fire his attorney. He may have gotten off lightly.
The pennies, I guess I'm saying, might not have much to do with what happened.
From the DOJ release:
>The court ordered the auto shop operator to pay $39,934, representing back wages owed and an equal amount in liquidated damages, to nine workers.
If I'm understanding that correctly, the person paid in pennies is owed a whopping $1,830.
You can't just "know it", you have to prove it.
You aren’t proving that a physical item that should be in one location has in fact been moved to another. You’re proving that the reason some dollars haven’t been moved from one place to another is that the perpetrator intended to withhold those dollars.
That could be changed though. Criminalize the simple fact of underpayment, as opposed to requiring intent, and I imagine wage theft would rates would go down? …But beware unintended consequences. You don’t necessarily want to throw the neighborhood baker into jail because she bounced a paycheck.
Personally, I’ve never seen or heard of a single person have any repercussions for shoplifting, and I’ve seen a _lot_ of shoplifting in Seattle.
That said, I am not seeing the relevance to the originally posted article. This is an example of the law actually working against the structures police forces were created to enforce
In the article, the business owners keep suggesting that it was bad performance, or a bad attitude, or something like that, that justifies this behavior. But, factually, both as a matter of law and custom, nothing justifies this.
If a fellow works for you on an agreed rate, you are obliged to pay him. If you are not, ultimately, happy with an employee, that doesn't mean you get to keep his last paycheck.
That still suggests a circumstance (the fellow not in fact working) where you could withhold the paycheck, but I don't think such a withholding is generally possible.
2. hours worked, and "working," have legal meaning, which, again, is not disputed by either party
in america, if you contract with a fellow to work, and you find the work unsuitable, you can discharge him quite easily. but you still owe him his wages!
There are a number of reasons rents paid to landlords are treated somewhat differently from wages paid to workers! Those are deeply political and important, and not super relevant here
In the narrowly relevant question: No one would ever accept a spite-filled "rent" paid to a landlord in the form of oil-covered pennies, provided only as a means of spiting the creditor
You have invented a villain who does not exist.
So... is the slander case coming next?
https://epd.georgia.gov/document/document/used-oil-guidance-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law...