Can a former employer (U.S.) use/withhold owed commissions as leverage? I am in "negotiations" with a former employer. There are written (text message: "You will be paid on X and Y when/if they close) agreements in place for 2 of my deals. One just closed, the other in-process. The employer is being very difficult. His lawyer negotiates with me one day then claims I am owed nothing the next. I have confirmed that one deal has closed and I would like to get paid. Can he/lawyer try to use the payment to me as leverage, for example, offer to give me that payment only if I agree to sign a non-compete or other document? I'd like to know the legal standing of such a move on their part. Thanks.
Can he/lawyer try to use the payment to me as leverage, for example, offer to give me that payment only if I agree to sign a non-compete or other document? The employer ultimately ought to comply with the written agreements between you two. The employer is not allowed to belatedly impose conditions that alter (to your detriment) the contract(s), let alone when you are no longer his employee. The clause "You will be paid on X and Y when/if they close" does not reflect whatsoever that payment is contingent on your acceptance of a non-compete agreement. Your description does not reflect any legal merits that would justify your employer to further withhold the compensation to which you are entitled pursuant to the deal/sale that got closed. The employer and his lawyer are just being vexatious.
Yes, you can sell an interest in a debt; this is an alternative to paying a debt collection agency on recovery. The contract that you have with the debtor may have limitations of the transfer of rights and obligations under the contract that may prevent this. The value of the debt to the agency depends on the status of the debt and the credit worthiness of the debtor. If you have a judgement debt from a court, they don't come any more rock solid than that - the only limitation is the debtor's ability to pay. If the debtor has assets or a solid income stream an agency may pay 70-80% of the face value of the debt.
You cannot contract outside the law Any "contract" that purports to break the law isn't a contract - it's an unenforceable agreement. For example, across all jurisdictions, a contract that is unconscionable is void. So is a contract that requires one of the parties to break the law - a "contract" for murder for example. In addition, you cannot call an employment relationship a "business" relationship - if the relationship meets the requirements of an employer-employee relationship then that's what it is and woe betide you if you haven't complied with all relevant entitlement, tax, insurance and safety laws. In addition, all of the relationships you listed are contracts.
Without prejudice in a legal communication has a similar effect as off the record does in journalism. Without prejudice can be applied to any form of communication written or verbal; mediations, for example, are almost always conducted on a without prejudice basis. The legal effect is that anything said or written in the communication is inadmissible in a court. A typical example is in a settlement offer: "We have your claim for $1,000,000 and we think its a load of c**p for reasons A, B &amp; C, however, without prejudice we offer the amount of $3.50 as full and final settlement of your claim. This offer remains open for 7 days." The party that receives such a letter can not use or rely on anything it says in legal proceedings. It is a practical and invaluable method of allowing real negotiation and concessions to be made without the risk that these will be used against you if it all falls in a heap and you end up in court. Without prejudice, save as to costs has the same effect with the addition that you are specifically making a settlement offer (like my example above). If a matter is resolved by a trial the judge will award costs either against each one party or order that each party pays their own costs; in general, the costs "follow the event" i.e. the losing party usually gets stuck with the costs. If the "losing" party can show that they made a reasonable offer of settlement then they can apply to have the "winning" party pay their costs from that point on. For example see NSW Costs. Now, a document either is or is not without prejudice irrespective of if it carries the words or not - you can’t make a document that is not part or a bona fide negotiation without prejudice just by writing the words on it and one that is part of a negotiation is without prejudice even if it omits the words.
Such clauses are called "copyright assignment", "invention assignment", and/or "works for hire" clauses, partly depending on the clause's intent and wording. They're pretty common in employment contracts for software development and some creative positions. Frankly, the clauses don't actually do much, at least in the US -- copyright law already recognizes the concept of works made for hire (which belong to the employer), and claims too far beyond that are often rejected if they aren't obviously related to company business. With that said, your hypothetical programmer's painting is safe unless it depicts, say, the contents of an email from the CEO. :) Even if the clause technically entitles the employer to claim ownership, the employer has no legitimate interest in doing so. Likewise, that app created outside work is safe as long as it is created using no company resources and is unrelated to the employer's business. If the app is obviously related, that's where things get hairy.
The fact that you're not a native speaker of English doesn't alter the legal situation. If you literally had no understanding of English but for some reason you signed a piece of paper, then you might argue that there was no agreement in the first place, but obviously you do speak some English. Most people don't actually understand what contracts mean (on both sides). Contracts are still enforced, based on what the contract says. The move-in data is proposed, not firm, and it even indicates what the charges are if your circumstances change and the dates have to change (whereas is their circumstances change, they wouldn't have a basis for charging extra). It also does say that there will be no refund if you change your mind. So the piece of paper says "No refund". The problem seems to be that there's an "agent" whose statements you relied on, who is ultimately responsible for this problem, and s/he implied that you could get a refund. It's not clear what kind of "agent" this is (is he working for you, or for the owners?). You'd have a somewhat different legal basis depending on which it is, but you could sue someone in either event, assuming that you could actually persuade the court that you were given false information which you relied on. The statement "they will refund your money if the guy doesn't move out by the 16th" is false; the statement "they may refund your money if the guy doesn't move out by the 16th" is true. If the latter was the statement that you relied on, then you knew (or should have known) that that isn't a promise, it's just a guess, and if you read the piece of paper you know that it's a promise with no basis. So I would say it comes down to establishing what promise was made to you. Arguing that the agent "made" you sign isn't going to get you anywhere (unless you can prove actual coersion).
I've litigated cases like these before. The IRS enforcement reaction is swift and severe. Penalties for the employer are heavy and rarely waived. It would be rare for a business like this to stay operational long enough to issue a W-2. A business like this would probably be shut down by the IRS and have the people responsible for the payroll function, at a minimum, promptly burdened with tax liens, within four to six months. These cases also constitute a significant share of all criminal tax prosecutions. The odds of someone doing this spending several years in federal prison is high. Generally speaking, if the wrongdoing is fully on the part of the employer without the collusion or knowledge of the employee, the IRS will not force the employee to double pay the taxes that should have been withheld by the employer in this situation. Instead, this IRS will try to recover the amounts that were withheld from the employees but not delivered to the IRS. It will seek to recover these amounts from the employer and also from other responsible persons in the organization (and from outsourced professionals) with the authority to pay the IRS who did not do so. There may be circumstances, if push comes to shove, where the IRS could collect from the employees in a case like this one (I've never had occasion to need to research that issue), but that would be the rare exception and not the rule, in practice. On the other hand, if the employer simply does not withhold taxes or prepare W-2s at all, and either 1099s people who should have been classified as employees (or files no information tax returns at all), the IRS will generally insist that the employee pay income taxes on the full amount owed and that they pay the employee part of payroll taxes. It will also pursue the employer for the employer's share of payroll taxes. The employer will also be jointly and severally liable for any taxes that should have been reported and subjected to withholding that are not paid by the employee (perhaps because the employee spent all the money). Sometimes cases like this are also criminally prosecuted, but it is less common to do so.
Contracts contain an implicit term that obligations will be carried out in a reasonable time While the situation is unusual and we obviously don't have the specific terms of the agreement, it would appear that the vendor agreed to contribute to half the cost of the roof repair and your sister was obliged to contribute the other half and arrange for the roof to be repaired. Implicit in this is that she would do this within a reasonable time. Your sister does not have the right to keep the money in limbo indefinitely. It's open to argument whether a year is a reasonable time or not. Similarly, if your sister is in breach of the agreement, the vendor would probably only be entitled to damages for what they have lost; they would not normally be entitled to terminate the contract. Their damages might be assessed as the difference between what their share costs now compared to what it would have cost a year ago - this may be nothing or a lot depending on how prices have changed - and interest lost on the balance that should have been returned to them.