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Long story short, my buddy talked to his attorney. There's basically nothing they can do. If you pay someone as a W-2 on a salary, even if you (and they) understood that they were terminated, the money is not recoverable.
Federal law allows for the recovery of overpaid wages.
Many states will have their own requirements including some with short statutes of limitations or automatic sunset clauses. Most likely the attorney just felt the cost and effort for any recoverable amount just wasn't worth it and advised against pursuing the matter. How the employer decides to tell the story is another matter.
A well-to-do friend of mine has a household-employment situation that has an interesting twist. He uses his company HR department to "manage" these personal staff (he owns the company, so it's not improper but perhaps unseemly).
Anyhow, about a year ago, he hired a woman, Suzy, to his household staff. She was not competent, so after a week or two, she was terminated. He and she met, and he stated that it wasn't working out, and they parted ways. So just a few days ago, he's talking to the HR people about some newer staff, and getting their names into the payroll, etc. The HR clerk says, so is the new girl replacing Suzy? He says, who's Suzy? HR says, you remember -- you hired Suzy a year ago...
It turns out, this terminated employee has been on the payroll for the entire year. She never made a peep, but the weekly payroll kept churning. Long story short, my buddy talked to his attorney. There's basically nothing they can do. If you pay someone as a W-2 on a salary, even if you (and they) understood that they were terminated, the money is not recoverable.
Is Suzy kinda the equivalent of Milton from Office Space? Only in the movie he was fired but due to a glitch in payroll he kept getting paychecks so kept showing up to work. No one knew what to do with him so they moved his desk down into the basement.
A well-to-do friend of mine has a household-employment situation that has an interesting twist. He uses his company HR department to "manage" these personal staff (he owns the company, so it's not improper but perhaps unseemly).
Anyhow, about a year ago, he hired a woman, Suzy, to his household staff. She was not competent, so after a week or two, she was terminated. He and she met, and he stated that it wasn't working out, and they parted ways. So just a few days ago, he's talking to the HR people about some newer staff, and getting their names into the payroll, etc. The HR clerk says, so is the new girl replacing Suzy? He says, who's Suzy? HR says, you remember -- you hired Suzy a year ago...
It turns out, this terminated employee has been on the payroll for the entire year. She never made a peep, but the weekly payroll kept churning. Long story short, my buddy talked to his attorney. There's basically nothing they can do. If you pay someone as a W-2 on a salary, even if you (and they) understood that they were terminated, the money is not recoverable.
Not always true. I know someone now in his 80s, has been paying back an over payment in his salary for years, he made an agreement and has to pay back $1000 a year, every December. He took all that extra pay for years, knowingly, it was before my time but I think the error was discovered upon his retirement at age 55. Now that he's in his mid 80s he keeps petitioning to have the remaining debt forgiven, but the employer won't budge. It's government/public employee, maybe that makes a difference?
Not always true. I know someone now in his 80s, has been paying back an over payment in his salary for years, he made an agreement and has to pay back $1000 a year, every December. He took all that extra pay for years, knowingly, it was before my time but I think the error was discovered upon his retirement at age 55. Now that he's in his mid 80s he keeps petitioning to have the remaining debt forgiven, but the employer won't budge. It's government/public employee, maybe that makes a difference?
I would expect the difference is that a lawyer doesn't see a big enough fee recovering the $$ from Suzy.
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