Have a general question about employment law? Want to share a story? I welcome all comments and questions. I can't give legal advice here about specific situations but will be glad to discuss general issues and try to point you in the right direction. If you need legal advice, contact an employment lawyer in your state. Remember, anything you post here will be seen publicly, and I will comment publicly on it. It will not be confidential. Govern yourself accordingly. If you want to communicate with me confidentially as Donna Ballman, Florida lawyer rather than as Donna Ballman, blogger, my firm's website is here.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Does My Employer Have To Pay Earned Sick And Vacation Time When I Leave?

An AOL Jobs reader asked:
Donna I have a question please. I recently found out about a change in the retirement pay out rule at the hospital where I have worked for over twenty years. I have worked all these years under the rule that when I retire I would be paid for all my saved PTO hours as well as half of the ESL hours I have accumulated which in my case is half of 520 hours. Now it seems that around three years ago they decided they would not pay out for the ESL hours. In other words, we just lose that time. I can understand if they change that rule but shouldn't that just affect people hired after the change date? This is a huge number of pay hours for a hospital if 3000 employees and just for me it will be a very big loss when I retire.

Can they legally do this?

Thank You
There are no federal laws requiring sick or vacation time, so the answer to this question will (mostly) depend on your state law. I discuss what you need to know about your earned sick and vacation pay in my AOL Jobs column here.

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I appreciate your comments and general questions but this isn't the place to ask confidential legal questions. If you need an employee-side employment lawyer, try http://exchange.nela.org/findalawyer to locate one in your state.