Today, I received a check for $381.42 from E. Lynn Schoenmann, the Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Trustee for EmployeeService.com, my employer until 11-Jan-2001. You see, EmployeeService.com failed to pay wages to a single employee for the final two weeks of service.
$381.42 is a mere fraction of what I was owed, of course. I was owed $2,700 in wages, plus $2,538 in upaid vacation time.
I padded that even further with the California Labor Code, sections 201 and 203 (I was unemployed–I had lots of free time). Section 203 conveniently requires an employer who willfully fails to pay wages upon discharge to continue paying the employee for thirty days as a penalty. Considering that EmployeeService.com did not file a bankruptcy claim until mid-March and had money in the bank at the time all employees were laid off (11-Jan-2001), I figure that qualifies for "willful." Anyway, that came out to an additional $6,500, meaning I had a claim for $11,538.
So I got 3.3% of my claim.
At least I can finally deduct the remaining $11,156.58 as an unrecoverable debt on my taxes. And I have an extra $381.42!