Benefits Error with Payroll

[perfectaim37]

I agreed to have my work's payroll deduct approximately $40/week for health insurance. They have been paying the insurance company, but have erroneously not been taking the money out of my check for 14 weeks unbeknownst to me due to a raise and overtime fluctuations. Last week they said that I could make payments to make up the $586 I "owe". I told them I needed to speak with my bankruptcy lawyer (I have started the filing process for bankruptcy recently before this incident) before I made any decisions as I don't think it is my responsibility to fix their gross miscalculated error. My bankruptcy lawyer said there is little I could do, but he would check to see if there was anything he possibly could do to avoid this headache. I told my work that I would get back to them once I heard from my lawyer. And today, on the first pay stub I received since talking with my place of employment, I found out that payroll has garnished my entire paycheck- 100% ($510). Can I either sue them or is there maybe any way they can take the blame for their mistake and eat the $586?

 

[Patricia_Young]

I'm not buying "unbeknownst to me". Deductions are deductions and earnings are earnings. They are shown separately on the pay stub and if you had looked at your pay stub there is no reason not to see the error.

Your attorney is right. You authorized the deductions. The fact that the employer made a mistake does not invalidate your authorization. You do not get to benefit from the employer's mistake. Nor did the employer have to agree to a repayment plan. And because you authorized deductions for the insurance, which is to your benefit, the minimum wage does not apply to the most recent paycheck. Saying you would "get back to them" does not preclude them from taking the full amount to the extent possible.

You cannot sue, nor can you "make" the employer "eat" their mistake, poor auditing procedures or not.

 

[perfectaim37]

Unbeknownst means that at the same time I had received a pay raise, worked several various hours of overtime over several weeks, and could not have noticed a glitch on my paycheck since the only pay stub the insurance actually appeared on was this last "paycheck." Am I supposed to do payroll's job and figure out exactly what is supposed to be taken out for taxes after overtime hours and figure out myself if my check is accurate? That's payroll's JOB, ma'am. And isn't garnishing 100% of someone's paycheck illegal no matter what? Either way what happened was wrong, unfair, unethical, and highly unprofessional. Just wait until something like this happens to you and throws your budget completely out of wack. Then you might feel my pain. Thank you for your response and I hope to hear back from you.

 

[Patricia_Young]

I have managed payroll operations for over 20 years and I am also an employee. I am not speaking out of my hat, here.

Are you telling me that you didn't see on the paystub that there used to be an insurance deduction and then there wasn't? It sounds like you were just looking at net pay and not the components of it.

This is not a garnishment. A garnishment is a tax levy or order by the court to a company to deduct to satisfy a legal judgment.

I don't disagree that there was an error made. I don't disagree that it should probably have been made clearer to you how this arrears amount was going to be collected. But expecting the employer to wait for you to talk to your attorney was just not reasonable. And expecting the employer to "eat" the error when you had the benefit of the coverage is not fair either.

In any case, you have no legal recourse because nothing that occurred was a violation of any law.