Attorneys are reviewing claims from workers whose employers allegedly withheld pay, skipped overtime, or misclassified them to avoid paying properly. If any of that happened to you — unpaid wages, a missing final paycheck, unpaid commissions, wrongful termination, or harassment — here is what the law lets you recover and how long you have to act.
Quick Answer
Yes — in most situations an employee can sue an employer for unpaid wages. The Fair Labor Standards Act covers unpaid minimum wage and unpaid overtime and lets a worker recover the back pay plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, along with attorney's fees. State wage payment laws cover final paychecks, unpaid commissions, and missed meal and rest breaks, and several add their own penalties. The federal wage clock is two years, or three if the violation was willful; harassment and discrimination claims usually require an EEOC charge within 180 or 300 days. Retaliating against a worker who complains is separately illegal. This page is general information about those rules, not legal advice — which path fits a particular situation depends on the state and the facts, which is what a free case review sorts out.
Allegations Only · No Settlement Yet
This page describes an active attorney intake for individual and potential class or collective wage claims. It does not name a defendant, no employer has been found liable in connection with this page, there is no class-wide settlement, and there is no claim form to file. This page is general information about employee rights, not legal advice about your specific situation.
Hold Your Employer Accountable
Getting shorted on a paycheck is not a paperwork problem. It is one of the most common and least reported legal violations in the country, and the law treats it seriously: an employer that withholds earned pay can be ordered to hand back the wages, an equal amount again in damages, and the worker's legal fees.Attorneys are reviewing claims from employees and former employees who allege their employer illegally withheld pay, failed to pay overtime, or misclassified them to avoid paying proper wages. The review is free, and it covers hourly workers, salaried workers, tipped workers, commissioned salespeople, and people classified as independent contractors.
What follows is a general description of how these laws work, not legal advice. Wage and employment rules differ substantially from state to state, and the outcome in any individual situation depends on facts a general article cannot evaluate.
Which Workplace Problems Does This Cover?
If any of the following happened to you at work, your situation is worth a free review:- Unpaid wages or a missing final paycheck — hours worked and never paid, a last check that never arrived, or one that arrived short.
- Unpaid commissions — earned commissions withheld, clawed back, or wiped out because you left before a payout date.
- Unpaid overtime — off-the-clock work, hours shaved from a timesheet, or a salary used as an excuse to skip time-and-a-half.
- Wrongful termination — fired for a reason the law does not allow, including for complaining about pay.
- Harassment, discrimination, or a hostile work environment — conduct tied to a protected characteristic that made the job unbearable.
- Sexual harassment — unwanted advances, coercion, or a supervisor conditioning your job on going along with it.
- Breach of contract — an employment agreement, bonus plan, severance promise, or commission schedule the employer did not honor.
- Missed meal periods or rest breaks — breaks skipped, interrupted, or worked through without premium pay in states that require it.
- Dropped from health insurance — coverage cut off without the notice and continuation rights the law requires.
Can I Sue My Employer for Not Paying Me?
In most cases, yes. Two separate bodies of law give you a path.The federal Fair Labor Standards Act sets a national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and requires overtime at one and a half times an employee's regular rate for every hour over 40 in a workweek. It gives employees a private right of action, meaning you can sue directly rather than waiting for a government agency to act.
On top of that, every state has its own wage payment law. Those statutes are usually what governs a final paycheck, an unpaid commission, a bounced payroll deposit, or an unauthorized deduction, and many of them are more generous than federal law — higher minimum wages, daily overtime, mandatory paid rest breaks, and stiffer penalties for late pay.
You also have a free administrative option. The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division investigates wage complaints at no cost, and every state has a labor commissioner or equivalent agency that does the same. In fiscal year 2025, the Wage and Hour Division reported recovering roughly $259 million in back wages for about 177,000 workers — its highest recovery since 2019. Which route is better depends on how much is owed, how many coworkers were affected, and whether you signed an arbitration agreement when you were hired.
One more thing worth knowing: wage cases are frequently not solo cases. If your employer paid you a certain way, it very likely paid everyone in your job classification the same way. That is why so many of these matters proceed as wage and hour class actions or as FLSA collective actions, where similarly situated employees opt in and are represented together.
Unpaid Overtime: When Does Your Employer Owe You Time and a Half?
Federal overtime is simple on paper. A non-exempt employee who works more than 40 hours in a workweek is owed one and a half times their regular rate for the excess hours. The regular rate is not always the base hourly wage — non-discretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and commissions generally have to be folded in before the multiplier is applied, which is a calculation many payroll systems get wrong.The disputes almost always come down to one of three arguments:
"You're salaried, so you don't get overtime." A salary alone does not make anyone exempt. Under the white-collar exemptions, an employee generally must be paid at least $684 per week — about $35,568 a year — and actually perform executive, administrative, or professional duties. The Department of Labor issued a 2024 rule that would have raised that figure to $1,128 per week, but two Texas federal courts vacated it, the Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeals in May 2026, and the Department formally rescinded the rule effective May 15, 2026. The 2019 threshold of $684 per week is the governing federal standard. Several states set higher salary floors of their own.
"You're a manager." Job titles carry no legal weight. What matters is what you actually do all day. An assistant manager who spends most of a shift running a register, stocking, or cooking is often non-exempt no matter what the title says, and that pattern drives a large share of retail and restaurant overtime cases.
"You're an independent contractor." Misclassification is one of the most common wage violations there is. Contractors get no overtime, no minimum wage protection, and no employer-side payroll taxes — which is exactly why the classification is abused. Courts look at the economic reality of the relationship rather than the label on the paperwork, weighing factors such as who controls the schedule, who supplies the tools, who sets the rates, and how integral the work is to the company's regular operation. Signing a contractor agreement does not settle the question.
Then there is the quietest version: work that never makes it onto the clock at all. Pre-shift setup, post-shift cleanup and cash-out, mandatory training, donning and doffing required gear, driving between job sites during the workday, answering calls and messages after hours, and time automatically deducted for a meal break you never actually got. Each of those is compensable time when it is required by the employer, and each of them is routinely unpaid. See our coverage of an installer overtime case built on exactly that theory for how these claims get pleaded.
When Does an Employer Have to Give You Your Final Paycheck?
There is no federal deadline for a final paycheck, so this is entirely a question of state law — and the spread between states is enormous.California sits at the strict end. An employee who is fired must be paid all final wages immediately, at the time of termination. An employee who quits with at least 72 hours' notice must be paid on the last day. An employee who quits without that notice must be paid within 72 hours. If the employer misses those deadlines, Labor Code section 203 imposes a waiting time penalty of one full day of wages for every day the payment is late, up to 30 days — a penalty that can dwarf the underlying paycheck. The employer can escape it only by showing a genuine good-faith dispute over what was owed.
Most other states land somewhere between "immediately" and "the next regular payday," and many draw a distinction between quitting and being fired. Accrued but unused vacation is treated as earned wages in some states and forfeitable in others. Because the rule that applies to you is set by the state where you worked, this is one of the first things a case review pins down.
Separately, an employer generally cannot solve a dispute by deducting from your pay. Unauthorized deductions for cash register shortages, broken equipment, uniforms, or customer walkouts are restricted or flat-out prohibited in many states, and are unlawful under federal law whenever they push earnings below minimum wage or cut into overtime.
Can You Sue for Unpaid Commissions?
Yes, and these cases turn on the written plan more than on any statute. Commissions are usually treated as earned wages once the conditions in the commission agreement have been satisfied, which means an employer generally cannot rewrite the rules after the sale closed or refuse to pay simply because the salesperson left.The recurring flashpoints are the same across industries: a policy that forfeits commissions on any deal that pays out after your last day, a quota or chargeback applied retroactively, a territory reassigned right before a large account closed, a "discretionary" bonus that was in practice promised and expected, and draws recharacterized as advances the company then tries to claw back. Several states specifically protect commissioned employees and add multiple damages when earned commissions are withheld. These cases generally turn on the written commission plan, the sales records, and the correspondence around the disputed deals, and those documents tend to become difficult to retrieve once a work account is closed.
When Is Firing Someone Illegal?
Most U.S. employment is at-will, which means an employer can fire you for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all. But it cannot fire you for an illegal reason, and the exceptions are broader than most people assume.A termination may be unlawful when it is because of a protected characteristic — race, color, religion, sex including pregnancy and sexual orientation, national origin, age 40 or over, disability, or genetic information. It may be unlawful when it is retaliation for reporting harassment, discrimination, safety violations, or wage violations, for filing a workers' compensation claim, or for taking leave the law guarantees. It may be unlawful when it breaches an employment contract, a collective bargaining agreement, or a promise the employer made in its own handbook. And it may be unlawful when it violates a clear public policy, such as firing someone for refusing to break the law or for serving on a jury.
Timing often matters in these cases. A first-ever write-up landing days after a worker raised a pay complaint is the kind of sequence retaliation claims are commonly built on, though whether any particular sequence supports a claim depends on the full record. Our explainer on what counts as wrongful termination walks through how those claims are proven.
Harassment, Discrimination & Hostile Work Environment
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibit workplace harassment and discrimination based on protected characteristics. Title VII and the ADA generally apply to employers with 15 or more employees, the ADEA to those with 20 or more, and most states extend equivalent protection to much smaller workplaces.A hostile work environment claim does not require a single dramatic incident. It requires conduct tied to a protected characteristic that a reasonable person would find severe or pervasive enough to alter the conditions of employment. A steady drip of slurs, exclusion, demeaning comments, or sabotage can qualify where one isolated remark would not.
The deadline here is the trap. Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims under federal law generally require filing a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 days of the discriminatory act, extended to 300 days in states that have their own fair employment practices agency — which is most of them. You normally cannot go straight to federal court without that charge. The agency is busy: the EEOC received 91,503 new charges in fiscal year 2025 and recovered nearly $660 million for 17,680 people, including $528 million resolved before litigation ever started.
Sexual Harassment at Work
Sexual harassment covers two recognized patterns. Quid pro quo harassment is a supervisor conditioning a job, a promotion, a schedule, or continued employment on submitting to sexual conduct. Hostile environment harassment is unwelcome sexual conduct — comments, images, touching, propositions, or messages — severe or pervasive enough to change the conditions of the job.Two federal laws passed in the last few years changed the landscape meaningfully. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, signed in March 2022, lets a person bringing a sexual harassment or sexual assault claim void a pre-dispute arbitration clause and go to court instead, even if they signed one at hire. The Speak Out Act, signed in December 2022, limits the enforceability of pre-dispute nondisclosure and non-disparagement clauses covering those same claims. Together they mean that paperwork signed on your first day is far less likely to close the courthouse door than it once was.
Retaliation for reporting harassment is separately unlawful, and in practice it is the most frequently substantiated claim of all.
Missed Meal Periods, Rest Breaks & Losing Health Coverage
Federal law does not require meal or rest breaks, but it does require that short breaks — generally under 20 minutes — be paid, and that a meal break be genuinely duty-free before it can be unpaid. Automatically deducting 30 minutes from every shift while employees keep working through it is a classic unpaid-time violation.State law goes much further in places. California requires a 30-minute unpaid meal period before the end of the fifth hour of work and a paid 10-minute rest period for every four hours worked, and Labor Code section 226.7 requires the employer to pay one additional hour of pay at the employee's regular rate for each workday a meal period is missed, plus another hour for each workday a rest period is missed. Those premiums accumulate quickly across a workforce, which is why break claims anchor so many California cases. Our overview of California wage and hour class actions covers how those rules work in practice.
Losing health coverage is its own issue. When employer-sponsored coverage ends because of termination, reduced hours, or a similar qualifying event, COBRA generally gives employees and their families the right to continue that coverage for a limited period, and it requires the plan to send a proper election notice explaining how. Courts can impose statutory penalties of up to $110 per day for a failure to provide that notice, on top of the medical bills a worker incurred while wrongly uncovered. Being dropped from a plan with no notice, or being told coverage ended earlier than it actually did, is among the situations attorneys review.
How Much Can You Actually Recover?
There is no standard figure — recoveries depend on the wage rate, the number of unpaid hours, how long the violation ran, the state, and whether the conduct was willful. What the law makes available generally includes:- Back pay — the wages, overtime, commissions, or premiums that should have been paid.
- Liquidated damages — under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), an additional amount equal to the unpaid wages, effectively doubling the back pay, unless the employer proves it acted in good faith.
- State penalties — waiting time penalties, late-payment penalties, wage statement penalties, and in some states double or treble damages.
- Attorney's fees and costs — the FLSA and most state wage laws require a losing employer to pay the prevailing employee's legal fees, which is why these cases can be taken without money up front.
- Interest, and in termination or harassment cases, lost future earnings, emotional distress damages, and in some circumstances punitive damages.
Nothing above is a prediction about any individual case. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
How Long Do You Have to File?
Every one of these claims has a clock, and the clocks are short.- Federal wage claims (FLSA) — two years from the violation, extended to three years if the violation was willful, under 29 U.S.C. § 255(a).
- EEOC charges — 180 days from the discriminatory act, extended to 300 days in states with their own fair employment agency.
- State wage claims — vary widely, commonly two to six years depending on the state and whether the claim is statutory or contractual.
- Breach of contract — set by state law, often three to six years for a written agreement.
The important mechanic: in wage cases the deadline usually runs separately against each paycheck. Every week you wait, the oldest week of unpaid wages drops off the back end and cannot be recovered. That is the single biggest reason these claims shrink — not denial, just delay.
Can Your Employer Retaliate If You Complain?
No. Section 215(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act makes it unlawful to discharge or discriminate against an employee for filing a wage complaint or participating in a wage proceeding, and Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA contain parallel bans covering discrimination and harassment complaints. Nearly every state labor code adds its own protection, and several impose penalties specifically for retaliating against a worker who asked about pay.Retaliation is not limited to firing. Cut hours, a sudden schedule change, a demotion, a transfer to a worse shift or location, a first-ever write-up, or exclusion from overtime opportunities can all qualify. Because retaliation claims are judged on timing and pattern, keep a dated record of when you raised the issue, who you raised it with, and what changed afterward.
What a Case Review Usually Starts With
Access to work systems tends to disappear the moment employment ends, so records are easiest to preserve early. The documents these reviews typically begin with are:- Pay stubs, W-2s or 1099s, and direct deposit records.
- The offer letter, employee handbook, arbitration agreement, and any commission, bonus, or severance plan.
- A personal record of hours worked — start times, end times, breaks taken or missed — including one reconstructed from calendars and messages.
- Schedules, timeclock printouts, and any texts or emails about pay, hours, scheduling, or a complaint that was raised.
- Copies kept somewhere other than a work device or work email account.
- The names of coworkers paid the same way — wage violations often affect an entire job classification rather than one person.
- Any severance agreement, release, or settlement that has been offered, since those documents typically give up claims in exchange for the payment.
Get a Free Case Review
Attorneys are reviewing these situations at no cost. A review can identify which law applies in the state where you worked, what deadline is running, and whether the facts support a claim — questions this page cannot answer for any individual.Free, Confidential Case Review: See If You Qualify
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue my employer for not paying me?
In most cases yes. Federal law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) and state wage payment laws give employees a private right of action to recover unpaid minimum wages and unpaid overtime, and state contract and wage laws cover unpaid commissions, bonuses, and final paychecks. You can also file a free administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division or your state labor agency instead of, or before, filing suit. Which route makes sense depends on how much is owed, whether other workers were shorted the same way, and whether you signed an arbitration agreement.
How much money can I get for unpaid overtime?
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employee who wins an unpaid overtime case can recover the unpaid wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages — in other words, up to double the back pay — along with attorney's fees and costs, under 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Many states add their own penalties on top, and a court can reduce or deny liquidated damages if the employer proves it acted in good faith. Amounts vary case by case and nothing here is a prediction of any individual result.
How long does an employer have to pay you after you are fired?
It depends on the state. There is no federal deadline for a final paycheck, so state law controls. California is the strictest example: an employee who is fired must be paid all final wages immediately, an employee who quits with at least 72 hours' notice must be paid on the last day, and an employee who quits without that notice must be paid within 72 hours. If the employer is late, California Labor Code section 203 allows a waiting time penalty of one day of wages for each day the payment is late, up to 30 days. Other states range from the next regular payday to a set number of days, and the rule that applies is set by the state where the work was performed.
How long do I have to file an unpaid wages claim?
Federal wage claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act generally must be filed within two years, extended to three years if the violation was willful, under 29 U.S.C. § 255(a). Discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims usually require an EEOC charge within 180 days of the incident, extended to 300 days in states with their own fair employment agency. State wage laws often allow longer, sometimes three to six years. Because the clock keeps running on each missed paycheck, waiting can quietly erase the oldest part of what you are owed.
My boss says I am salaried, so I do not get overtime. Is that true?
Not automatically. Being paid a salary is only one part of the test. To be exempt from overtime under the white-collar exemptions, an employee generally must be paid on a salary basis of at least $684 per week (about $35,568 a year) and must actually perform executive, administrative, or professional duties. The Department of Labor formally rescinded its 2024 rule in May 2026, so the $684 figure from the 2019 regulation is the governing federal threshold. A job title, a salary, or being called a manager does not by itself make an employee exempt — the day-to-day duties control, and misclassification is one of the most common wage violations.
Can my employer fire me for complaining about unpaid wages?
Retaliating against an employee for asserting wage rights is prohibited by 29 U.S.C. § 215(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and Title VII, the ADA, and the ADEA contain parallel bans on retaliation for reporting discrimination or harassment. Most state labor codes add their own protections. If an employer does fire, demote, or cut the hours of someone who complained, that retaliation can support a separate claim in addition to the underlying unpaid wages.
Does it cost anything to have my case reviewed?
The case review offered on this page is free and carries no obligation. Employment and wage-and-hour attorneys typically work on a contingency basis, meaning they are paid out of a recovery rather than up front, and the Fair Labor Standards Act separately requires a losing employer to pay a prevailing employee's attorney's fees. Submitting your information does not create an attorney-client relationship and does not guarantee that a case will be filed or that you will receive compensation.
What evidence should I collect before talking to a lawyer?
Gather pay stubs and W-2s or 1099s, your offer letter, employee handbook, and any commission or bonus plan, your own record of hours worked including start and end times and missed breaks, schedules and timeclock printouts, and any texts or emails about pay, hours, scheduling, or your complaint. Keep copies somewhere other than a work device or work email account, and note the names of coworkers who were paid the same way, because wage violations frequently affect an entire job classification rather than one person.
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Sources
• U.S. Department of Labor — Wage and Hour Division, Fair Labor Standards Act• U.S. Department of Labor — Wage and Hour Division Enforcement Data (FY 2025 back wage recoveries)
• U.S. Department of Labor — Overtime Rulemaking (2024 rule vacated; $684 threshold restored)
• 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) — Damages and Attorney's Fees (Cornell Legal Information Institute)
• 29 U.S.C. § 255(a) — Statute of Limitations (Cornell Legal Information Institute)
• EEOC — Fiscal Year 2025 Agency Performance Results
• EEOC — Time Limits for Filing a Charge
• California Department of Industrial Relations — Final Pay and Waiting Time Penalties
• U.S. Department of Labor — COBRA Continuation Health Coverage
