Does Your Pay Match Your Hours?

No matter what you do for a living, you deserve to be paid fairly. When your employer fails to pay you what you’ve already earned and you’re still an employee, you may hesitate to press the issue. But your employer cannot legally fire or demote you for seeking to be paid for work that you’ve already done.

At the Law Office of Neil S. Hyman, LLC, Mr. Hyman applies his more than 25 years of legal experience to your wage violation claim. Our attorney is known across Maryland for his work in this area of employment law, having authored a chapter on wage and hour law in the Maryland Employment Law Deskbook. He works personally with each client, never passing their case to another attorney or a paralegal.

We Can Determine The Core Problem

Sometimes, people initially come to our firm for another type of problem. For example, we’ve encountered clients who thought they were being discriminated against or harassed, but their cases ultimately became about unpaid wages. It’s important that your attorney asks the right questions to determine exactly where the problem lies. At the Law Office of Neil S. Hyman, LLC, we know how to get the information we need to figure out the problem at the bottom of your employment dispute.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), you can recoup wages for up to two years, or three years if the employer’s violation was “willful.” In Maryland, if you do not receive your unpaid wages, you may be eligible to receive up to three times the amount you are owed in damages. In Washington, D.C., you may be eligible to receive liquidated damages up to three times the amount of unpaid wages, plus the original wages.

Common Wage And Hour Violations

The legal theory behind wage and hour statutes is simple. If you’re an hourly employee, you should receive overtime pay for the extra hours you work. It also means that if you leave a job, you should be paid whatever vacation, bonus, negotiated severance or commission compensation you are owed. But employers, whether unintentionally or intentionally, may short workers for pay they are owed through the following actions:

• Failure to pay overtime: This could mean paying the hours at your regular rate of pay or not paying them at all.
• Unpaid breaks and meal periods: While federal and Maryland laws generally do not legislate breaks for all adults, specific mandates exist for minors and certain retail employees. Brief voluntary employer-provided breaks of five to 20 minutes are considered part of the workday and must be paid.
• Minimum wage violations: Maryland’s minimum wage for all employees is $15.50 per hour as of Jan. 1, 2026, with some counties requiring an even higher wage. Employers must comply with the highest minimum wage that applies in their location.
• Failure to pay for all hours worked: This includes factors such as not paying employees because they forgot to clock in or out; averaging hours over a longer period of time rather than paying for what was worked when it was worked; and refusing to pay for mandatory training time, pre- or post-shift tasks, or work performed during breaks.
• Misclassifying workers. The most common instance of this tactic is when employers claim an hourly worker is salaried when they work more than 40 hours a week. But it also happens when a company classifies an employee as a “contractor” to avoid paying overtime or benefits.

This list just scratches the surface of all the potential wage violations that can and should be addressed. Our firm champions state and federal employee rights. If you’ve been a victim of wage theft or another type of wage and hour claim, our attorney can pursue your claim in court to ensure you receive the pay you have worked so hard to earn.

Call For Help Getting Paid What You’ve Already Earned

At the Law Office of Neil S. Hyman, LLC, we know that you’re probably concerned about whether the amount you’ll have to spend on a lawyer will be more than what you are owed by your employer. Mr. Hyman can answer your questions at your initial consultation and provide you with a road map to help you get the money you deserve. Our firm has handled hundreds of cases just like yours, and we are confident that we can help you achieve a good result. Call us at 301-664-4848 or email our Bethesda office for more information.