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Common Defenses Against Wage Theft Allegations
Employees must be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. If your company is located in a state that has imposed a higher minimum wage, your employees are entitled to receive that amount instead. Those who work more than 40 hours in a week must be paid 150% of their average wages for those extra hours. Let’s take a closer look at how your business may be able to defend itself against claims that it improperly compensated employees.
Employees Are Generally Not Compensated for Time Spent Commuting
Employers have no control over where their employees choose to live, and therefore, they are not responsible for compensating their workers for time spent driving to work. However, they may be entitled to receive the standard mileage rate if they are required to drive to a seminar, conference or some other event taking place away from the office. As of 2021, the reimbursement rate is $.56 per mile. It’s worth noting that employees are supposed to be paid their typical wage for any time spent at the event itself.
Were All Hours Worked During the Same Week?
Employees who work more than 40 hours in a week are entitled to overtime pay even if they weren’t told to do so. However, to qualify as overtime, an employee must accrue those hours in the same week. A workweek is typically defined as beginning at midnight on Sunday and continuing until Saturday at 11:59 p.m.
Let’s say an employee has worked 35 hours prior to a shift that begins at 8 p.m. Saturday and ends at 4 a.m. Sunday. Assuming that the employee completes the shift as originally scheduled, that person would have accumulated 39 hours for the previous week and four hours for the new workweek. Therefore, that person would not be entitled to overtime pay, and your company would not be in violation of any wage and hour laws.
Is an Employee Referencing the Right Pay Period?
Typically, an employee does not receive a paycheck after the completion of his or her first pay period. For example, let’s say that an employee started working on Aug. 1 for a company that paid its workers every two weeks.
On the 15th, all employees who were on the company’s payroll would be paid for the hours worked during the previous two weeks. However, your new employee would not be paid until the completion of the pay period that ends on Aug. 31.
This may cause confusion for some workers who don’t realize that their first check will be delayed. However, you may be able to prevent a lawsuit by assuring those individuals that they will be paid in full at some point in the future.
Was the Claim Filed Before the Statute of Limitations Expired?
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) says that an employee has two years from the date of an alleged wage violation to file a lawsuit. In some cases, the statute of limitations will be extended to two years from the date that an employee should have known about a wage violation. If a lawsuit is not filed in a timely manner, a judge will likely dismiss it regardless of how strong that person’s claim is.
If an employee is threatening to take legal action against your company, it’s important to hire an attorney as quickly as possible. He or she may be able to create a defense to the allegation in an effort to end the matter in a timely manner. In some cases, a judge may be willing to grant a summary judgment, which closes the matter in your favor in a short period of time.