The Legal and Practical Aspects of Complaining About Errands

Q. I am a nonexempt, hourly employee. My supervisor expects me to pick up items for her such as prizes for employee activities, snacks, etc. during working hours, during lunch, after work and on weekends.

Running errands once in a while is fine, but this is getting to be too much. What can I do about this without having it affect my performance appraisal or relationship with the supervisor?

--P.T., Santa Fe Springs

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A. There are two answers to this question: the legal and the practical.

Legally, you are entitled to be paid for the time you spend after hours and on lunch breaks running errands for your boss. If this additional time puts you into overtime, you are entitled to be paid time and a half. Legally, you can insist on being paid for time spent on errands in the future. You can also file a claim with the state labor commissioner to recover wages for time spent on errands in the past, assuming you have reasonably accurate records.

Legally, you are protected from retaliation by your boss should you assert a claim for payment. Should she fire you for seeking payment, you could sue her for wrongful termination.

As a practical matter, however, if you make too much of an issue about this, you may cause serious and permanent harm to your working relationship with your supervisor. If you work for a large company and it is possible for you to transfer to another department, this may not matter. But if you work for a smaller company and you are otherwise happy with your job, you ought to take this into account in deciding what to do.

The best option might be to tell your supervisor that you are happy to help out in any way you can but that the after-hours work you are having to perform is conflicting with other obligations and you want to explore whether it would be possible to get these tasks done somehow during regular working hours. Perhaps if your supervisor observed how much time you spent away from the workplace running errands, she would try to find a more efficient way to get those tasks accomplished.

--James J. McDonald Jr.

Attorney, Fisher & Phillips

Labor law instructor, UC Irvine

Broken Promise May Constitute Fraud

Q. Recently I left a job to take another position. I told my new employer during an interview that I hadn’t worked with his company’s software for 15 years and he told me that I would be fully trained. The woman that I replaced would come in to train me.

I started work on Nov. 8 and received only 2 1/2 days of training on the computer. I was terminated Dec. 2.

Do I have any protection because he didn’t live up to his agreement? I also found out after I took the job that the employer and the woman I replaced are living together.

--L.F., Mission Viejo

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A. Promises can be enforced. You can recover damages for any breach of a contract made with you. The problem is proving that the employer really promised to fully train you in your new job. If it was confirmed in writing or if you have a witness, you would have a stronger case. However, even if it is your word against another’s, your case may still be good enough.

There may be a conflict over the extent to which the company was to train you. Since you feel that the training was entirely inadequate, it would help if you could get authorities in your industry to agree with you.

If you could prove that the breach of contract was not just negligent but intentional, then you could establish a fraud case. Fraud is breach of contract with intent, and such cases provide for a greater measure of damages. You can recover lost wages as well as punitive damages.

There has been some doubt as to whether a fraud action will be legally permitted in an employment case. According to a recent court ruling, if the fraud occurred at the beginning of employment, then it can be an appropriate claim.

A big factor in any case is the extent of damage suffered as a result of the wrongful act of the employer. It appears that you had given up a lot. You left a job to take this position. That gives your case more of an emotional impact to those evaluating it. If you got a better job soon after losing this one, your case would not have as much potential as it would if it took you a long time to find a replacement job.

I do not see the relevance of your being trained by a woman whom you replaced and who was living with your boss. If the woman you replaced has reclaimed the job, then you might have a discrimination claim.

Even though you received training for a short period, the people did not fire you until several weeks later. If the lack of training was not the reason for the termination, I would question the value of your case.

--Don D. Sessions

Employee rights attorney

Universal City