

Legal Advice: dealing with unpaid consulting fees with a NYC startup  - throwaway47358

Hi guys,<p>My apologies for using a throwaway account, but for potential legal reasons, I thought it best not to use my real name or contact details.<p>I started consulting with a startup in NYC earlier this year. A few months later, due to some of the ownership's other businesses having problems, they gave the entire company their contractually obligated notice. That's life, it happens. We were asked to stay on for a bit longer, finalizing a few projects and were told there would be no issues with getting our final checks as we knew the company had more than enough money in the bank account to pay everybody many times over and we had never had any issues with getting paid.<p>Weeks after leaving, not only haven't I received payment, I still have not received any response to my emails from their management requesting payment or a date when payment would be submitted. A few of my co-workers managed to get in touch with the ownership, but they also haven't received any payment. After talking with some of my former co-workers, I have learned that the executive team is still working for the company and getting paid and the owner is claiming that some sort of legal issues are preventing him from paying the rest of us. I haven't been able to find out yet what sort of legal issues these are, but I have never heard of any legal issues that allows some people to be paid while others aren't.<p>If they simply ran out of money or something and treated me like a human in response, I'd probably have dropped this by now. But refusing to even respond to any of my attempts to contact them really angered me and I wish to pursue all legal means of getting paid AND receiving damages. This isn't a situation where the company has no money, this is a situation where some millionaires are trying to con average working people out of their money.<p>I would sincerely appreciate any free legal advice anybody might have about how to deal with not getting paid consulting fees in NYC. I have a group of co-workers that are also in this boat and willing to pursue legal action, if this helps. I have never been in this situation and would love some guidance.<p>PS: If anybody in New York City is hiring, a few of my co-workers are currently on the market; including a very talented backend engineer that builds highly-scalable systems, a front-end engineer that is an expert in Javascript, and an all-around great graphic designer that is a whiz with Photoshop. If anybody is hiring and is looking for some great guys in those areas, I'd be happy to forward you their information. You can reach me at gh2548867@gmail.com.<p>Thank you.
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hga
Were you getting paid W-2 or 1099 reported wages?

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throwaway47358
Thanks for the reply. This was 1099 which is very standard as a consultant. I
don't know if this makes a difference legally though.

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hga
It does, or at least in the state of Virgina there's an agency that will go
after employers who stiff their W-2 employees (speaking from experience).

As 1099 contractors, I suspect your only option is to sue, which might be
practical depending on your small claims court system.

One other option for leverage is to look at the way you were employed and see
if there's much of a chance that per Section 1706 you really should have been
classified and paid as W-2 employees. In that case you can threaten to drop a
dime on the company by contacting the IRS, which will not be amused.

