Employer overpaid my husband for 15 months and wants money returned?

My husband has been overpaid for the past 15 months by $30/week because the company's accountant made an error. His paychecks vary every week from $550'ish to $750'ish, so obviously there was no way to catch this error.





They now want him to pay back the $1800 PLUS his bonus (nearly $1,000). I contacted a lawyer already (waiting for a call back), but wanted to ask here for some additional advice.





Employer overpaid my husband for 15 months and wants money returned?
I actually saw a case like this once. The judge took the case under consideration so I don't know how it turned out.





However, you should ask yourself what the ethical thing to do is. If your husband was paid money that he didn't earn, then he should return it under a re-payment plan.





As for the bonus, unless that was based on earnings, i don't see why he should return that.Employer overpaid my husband for 15 months and wants money returned?
It's a question of what either side can prove in court. If the company can prove that you were overpaid, that you should have known and made no attempts to remedy the situation when you did know, they win.





My suggestion would be to try and get the company into mediation. In court or arbitration somebody wins and somebody loses, you don't even get to speak in most cases, your attorney does all the talking. In mediation you can speak on your behalf and make things known that may not come out in court and both sides stand a chance of coming out ahead with concessions to both sides.
A similar case was reported in the news a few months back. don't remember where but it was decided that due to the company error, they were ordered by a court to be able to recoup the overpayment over time. The reason why the employer was granted the entire amount is that it is easy to prove that your husband knew of the error and remained silent. His silence actually caused the loss to be experienced, not the error itself. This is supported by a single legal contention.....if your husband would have done the correct thing and report the error when he first noticed it, would the employer have experienced a loss? The simple answer is no. Looking at it this way, the error made it possible for a company loss. You not reporting it is what actually caused the losses to be experienced.





Good luck. But the fact it was a company error and you and your husband benefited from it, does not protect you for being ';entitled'; to it.
Because of the varying amounts in your husband's paycheck, it doesn't sound like he was aware of the error, so anyone who is making it sound like he's a criminal should pay attention to what's being asked and how it's being asked. It sounds very much like it was an honest mistake on his part.





I believe that if your husband was overpaid, he's obligated to pay it back in some for or another. I would recommend that the company make a separate pretax deduction from his paycheck in an agreed upon amount until the $1800 is paid back in full.





As for the bonus, that isn't ';salary'; in the truest sense, so I don't think your husband should be obligated to repay that. If he was getting the bonus because it was part of his employment agreement, then he should keep it.





Unfortunately, I don't believe that because he was overpaid, the company is going to give him any leeway on paying back the base pay overpayment. They might fire the accountant, but that still isn't going to get their money back.





Good luck.
Interesting question! This happened to me also, but I no longer worked for the company. They tried to come after me a year after I quit, for like $1000. I had no idea they had overpaid me, because I had direct deposit, and they didn't make our pay stubs very accessible.





I didn't pay them. My old company sent all kinds of mean letters, and told me they were going to send it to collections, but I haven't received any phone calls from collections and it hasn't shown up on my credit.





Good Luck!
I work for the Federal Government (in Canada). One of my jobs is to recover money from people who were paid too much. It isn't fun. But, they do have to pay.





I should imagine that it is either company policy, or maybe in in his contract somewhere that it is his responsibility to ensure that his pay is correct. This includes overpayments.





This sucks of course. I prefer the part of my job where I get to pay people more money, or payments that were missed. Much more fun.






I was working in Florida for a construction company as a Project Manager. I rented cars, bought airline tickets and paid for hotel rooms on a expense agreement on my card. The company closed my division, as a result they did not pay one month of expenses and reduced all our pay to min Federal wage for the last 30 days of work.





According to the state of Florida anyways that was perfectly legal. So, I would say the end result would be, he could fight the repayment, get fired the day of his pay check was due and be sued for the balance. They who has the gold makes the rules.
He's on the hook for it can he not pay it back over one year ?


Everyone is entitled to make mistakes even the payroll clerk
The companies accountant should be the one to pay it back, in my opinion. They are the ones who screwed up.
I'd enter into a payment agreement. Best case here is he gets fired and keeps the money.






I'de take that 1,800 to mexico and buy a mansion and some servants.