OK, here's the question.

I am employed by a company who gives (among other benefits) sick and
vacation pay. Which after a period of employment, you can take with
you when you leave.

1-2 years 25%
2-3 years 50%
3-4 years 75%
4+ 100%

BUT if you're fired, they take it all back, even though this was an
inducement to be employed. AND they say "You earned this amount" of
sick/vac pay.

SO, if fired, would this STILL be grounds to sue for the recovery of
said hours?

Nah, I haven't been fired, but one never knows....

On 30 Aug 2004, Gene <Gene@nowhere.com> wrote:
I am employed by a company who gives (among other benefits) sick and vacation pay. Which after a period of employment, you can take with you when you leave. 1-2 years 25% 2-3 years 50% 3-4 years 75% 4+ 100% BUT if you're fired, they take it all back, even though this was an inducement to be employed. AND they say "You earned this amount" of sick/vac pay. SO, if fired, would this STILL be grounds to sue for the recovery of said hours?

With some differences in detail - but in particular cases the details
will matter - most US states legislatively define "wages" to include
all economic emoluments of every kind which the employer and employees
have agreed will have been earned and payable in the course of their
relationship and create a statutory cause of action which in some
places includes some sort of exemplary damage and related remedial
add-on (e.g., reimbursement of the suing employee's or former
employee's reasonably incurred attorneys if the plaintiff prevails) if
plaintiff's proof includes willfulness/deliberateness in default on
the employer's part.

Even so, however, the courts generally adopt a basically contract
analysis - namely, the answer to the question, "What exactly did the
parties agree about whether/how/when the benefit in dispute will have
been completely earned and payable?" yet your summary above is too
vague about what you and your employer agreed correctly to answer that
question for you

But including in states with comparatively strict and, at least on
their face, somewhat worker oriented such statutes (e.g., in Calif.
and N.Y.) the basic issue in litigated cases comes down essentially to
the court's factually to answering based on the evidence presented
whether the employer's severance pay or vacation or like plan was to
the effect,
on the one hand, that the covered employee will
have earned the particular benefit -- i.e., that
that benefit will have "accrued" -- merely by
reason of duration of employement for some
stated period, standing alone,
or
on the other hand, that employer had agreed to
pay the particular benefit in issue if, but only
if, some stated conditions in addition to durataion
of employment have first been met (e.g., that the
worker will not have been fired for cause) so
that, for that sort of employer-employee
relationship, it can fairly be said that, by
continuing to remain employed with knowledge
of the stated conditions, the affected employee
will be deemed to have agreed that the benefit
in question will not have been fully earned and
so also will not become payable unless/until
all such conditions (in the example given, not
being fired for cause) have been complied with.

Especially in contested cases arising from employer unilaterally
promulgated conditionally promised benefits (as distinguished, e.g.,
from union-management collectively bargained wages including fringe
benefit formulae), the courts therefore relatedly pay special
attention to whether the conditions at issue actually were made known
before before the dispute at issue arose compared with being imposed
after the fact and, as in most other disputed litigations, to whether
this compared with that party's claim is preponderently more
believeable (e.g., whether the firing, if there was one, was actually
for good cause or was an employer way pretextually to avoid paying an
otherwise agreed and also accrued and payable benefit).

In your summary of what you say your employer agreed, however, you are
unclear whether by "fired" you mean, in substance, "fired for cause"
compared with just having been fired at the employer's whim even
though the benefit in question will, by the terms of what the employer
agreed in light of the above summarized distinction, have been
otherwise both earned and payable and, even more importantly, whether
your "after a period of employment" reference accurately means to say
that your employer agreed that the benefits to which you refer will
have been earned and payable just by reason of whatever is the stated
period of employment having occurred or whether your "BUT, etc."
reference to being fired is a clearly stated additional pre-condition
to entitlement to the element of (in such case: just conditionally
earned?) wages to which you refer.

Gene <Gene@nowhere.com> wrote in message news:<gu9jc0pk6o5va17h6f72edcivnuni2pn79@4ax.com>... OK, here's the question. I am employed by a company who gives (among other benefits) sick and vacation pay. Which after a period of employment, you can take with you when you leave. 1-2 years 25% 2-3 years 50% 3-4 years 75% 4+ 100% BUT if you're fired, they take it all back, even though this was an inducement to be employed. AND they say "You earned this amount" of sick/vac pay. SO, if fired, would this STILL be grounds to sue for the recovery of said hours? Nah, I haven't been fired, but one never knows....

In California and maybe in some other states, you would have something
of a case.

Vacation pay (or anything equivalent to vacation pay) vests when
accrued in California (though an employer can limit how much you
accrue) and must be paid on termination, but sick pay does not. A few
other states have similar laws.

If they are reporting wages paid that were in fact not paid (your "You
earned this amount"), there would be a host of other violations as
well.

--
Not a lawyer,

Chris Green