I have been fired before. Most of my friends have been fired before. In fact, if you have worked in a restaurant for an extended period of time, you have almost certainly been fired. It’s humiliating, embarrassing, and there are few things worse than coming back into work with your tail between your legs to pick up your last check, cash tips, commissions, etc.
Well, this week there was a drastic change in Massachusetts law with regard to being terminated. On April 4th, 2022 the Supreme Judicial Court, which is the highest court in Massachusetts, created sweeping change by declaring that if you are terminated, you are due all of your wages — be it commissions, tips, hourly, salary, etc. — on THAT DAY. Not in the next pay cycle. Not when the employer gets around to it. On THAT DAY. If you are not paid all wages on the day of termination, the employer is liable for those wages, along with triple damages and attorney fees. Even a delay of one day could potentially cause these big time penalties to attach.
I won’t bog you down with the previous system, but in the past it has been very common for an employee to get fired and have their wages processed in the next payroll cycle. If you get fired on a Monday, for example, you might not see your wages until the next Friday. With the new ruling, if you are a bartender, you must be paid all of the tips and hourly that you made on that same day. This extends beyond the hospitality industry as well. If you are selling windows, you have to be paid all of the commissions that are due and payable on that day as well.
Why is this happening? The Court made its reasoning for this very clear. An employee who has been fired has very rarely made preparations for this loss of income. If someone is living paycheck to paycheck, a delay in payment can result in serious consequences for their families. Keep in mind, if you QUIT, the rules are different, and the employer is allowed a grace period. If however, an employer wants to fire someone, it has to have it’s ducks in a row first.
To close out, I would like to offer a quick bit of advice to employers. I can see how a ruling like this would make you nervous. What happens if you run a bookstore, and one of your employees just lit the non-fiction section on fire? Well, unless you have a check ready to go right at that moment, it appears as though firing someone on the spot may be a thing of the past. At this point, I think the best thing to do is suspend someone until you can get everything together. That might let cooler heads prevail and keep you on the happy side of the law.
Lastly, it remains to be seen if this will apply retroactively, but if I had to guess, I would say yes. So, if you have been fired in the last three years and want to chat, do not hesitate to send an email to me at lou@sabanlegal.com.
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