What started as a dispute over a few hundred dollars ended with an Atlanta-area employer paying nearly $40,000. That outcome is a useful lesson to employers on several fronts. One, always maintain legally compliant pay records, including pay rates, hours worked, and sums paid. Two, always make sure that you are paying your non-exempt workers proper time-and-a-half overtime when they work more than 40 hours in a week. And three, if you feel the urge to pay wages that you owe under the Fair Labor Standards Act in a way that smacks of revenge… don’t. Just issue a check and move on. It’ll be cheaper and better for your business in the long run. If you have any questions about your rights and responsibilities under the FLSA, make sure you consult with a knowledgeable Atlanta wage and hour lawyer.
The original dispute, which received relatively broad coverage as a result of its peculiar facts, pitted a Peachtree City auto repair shop against one of its former employees. The disagreement began after the employee, A.F., contacted the U.S. Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division to complain that his employer had not paid him his final paycheck, which amounted to $915.
Rather than simply cutting a check, the employer obtained 91,500 pennies, covered them in automotive fluids, and then delivered them to A.F.’s driveway. To remove doubts regarding motivation, the employer stuffed the man’s pay stub in an envelope with “[expletive] you!” written on the outside. The pile of pennies weighed more than 500 pounds and took more than seven hours to remove from the man’s driveway.