2009AP2429 Farady-Sultze v. Aurora Medical Center of Oshkosh, Inc.

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Employment
Employment at will; public policy

Section 103.455 does not apply to termination of an employee who was mistakenly overpaid, and did not notify the employer.

"The intent of the statute is quite clear. Once the employee earns wages, that employee is protected from having the employer deduct those earned wages on charges that the employee was responsible for defective or faulty workmanship, or lost or stolen property or damaged property unless one of three things occur: (1) the employee agrees in writing to the deduction, (2) the employer and a representative designated by an employee determines that the employee is responsible, or (3) that the employee's responsibility is found after court proceedings. The public policy goal of the statute is to prevent the employer from arbitrarily deducting hard earned wages at its prerogative. The statute accords a method of due process."
"Farady-Sultze does not begin to come under the statute. She never earned that sixteen hours of wages in Wautoma every pay period after she was reassigned. So, the goal of the statute, to protect earned wages, never came into play. Moreover, the purpose of the statute is to prevent unauthorized deduction from earned wages. There was no deduction of earned wages here.

Therefore, despite her claim that she simply did not know that she was getting more wages than she was supposed to, the fact remains that her claim is not protected by public policy." Affirmed.

Recommended for publication in the official reports.

2009AP2429 Farady-Sultze v. Aurora Medical Center of Oshkosh, Inc.

Dist. II, Winnebago County, Seifert, J., Brown, J.

Attorneys: For Appellant: Muza, Daniel M., Oshkosh; For Respondent: Scullen, Sean M., Milwaukee; Martin, Catherine Ann, Milwaukee

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