Exempt final paycheck

Squishypig · February 2004

OK, I hope I can write this out clearly. We terminated a manager for a serious infraction four days into a pay period (we pay bi-weekly). We would like to only pay her for the four days worked and dock for the fifth day on the final paycheck. Is docking full days only allowed when it is employee motivated, i.e. sickness, rather than employer motivated, i.e. termination?

If push comes to shove, I could argue just to give the extra day pay but the circumstances surrounding the separation could have cost us a lot of money. This manager has mentioned a lawyer so I am just trying to get all of our ducks in a row to make sure we are covered on our end.

Thank you for all of your help!

Johnette
[link:www.hrhero.com/cgi-bin/employersforum/employersforum.cgi?az=email_user&userid=Squishypig|"I'm in the weeds!" E-mail me if you are in the restaurant industry too!]

cthr · February 2004

You do not have to pay an exempt employee thier full salary during the last week of work, if they do not work the whole pay period. You may pay them only for the days worked. The same is true for the first week of employment.

AJ SPHR · February 2004

Just wanted to say I agree completely with cthr - you do not have to pay exempt employees for days not worked before their hire date or after their term date even if in the same workweek.

jlsiders · April 2004

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-02-04 AT 11:21AM (CST)[/font][br][br]My understanding is you can only dock exempt employees because of serious safety violations. But it sounds as though you're not really docking, but setting a termination date.

Don D · April 2004

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-02-04 AT 01:52PM (CST)[/font][br][br]You can in the first and last weeks of employment. I don't know what Louisiana law says about pay on termination date. In my state you would not have to.

njjel · April 2004

Actually you may dock an exempt employee for disciplinary reasons too provided you dock them for an entire work week.

jlsiders · April 2004

Yes, if you dock for less than a full week it is my understanding that in essence you are converting that person to hourly status which means you would have to pay him/her for all hours worked that week including overtime for hours worked over 8/40.

Exempt final paycheck

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