are there any law spags in the house?

[Disco Pickle]

So my father is working for this company operating heavy machinery, loaders and lifts and that sort of thing.

he hits a generator and puts a dent in the casing, maybe 2 inches.  It's over a void space and does no damage to anything within the generator.  If they'd have given him the opportunity, he could have fixed it himself for next to nothing.

they charged him $6000 for it and are taking it out of his paycheck in $100/week increments.

is this legal?  Doesn't liability insurance cover this?  I'm digging through some sites trying to find anything about doing this and am coming up empty.

anyone with previous experience is greatly appreciated.

[Disco Pickle]

nevermind.  found precedent.

still sounds like shit to me.

[Requia ☣]

At the very least, make them produce a bill for the repair job.

[Suu]

This is in Florida?

No right to work laws. They can charge him for whatever they want and fire him for no reason. He has no protection from the law there. Same with Rhode Island.

[Jasper]

Appeal to their personal interest.  It doesn't make them richer to bleed their employee to fix something he did.  Make them an offer like he will pay them (a lot less than 6 grand obviously) for the privilege to fix it himself.  That way they come out ahead, and your dad gets a chance to save $6000.

[East Coast Hustle]

Nah, that should be illegal if he's an employee of the contractor that's doing the job and not a sub-contractor himself. If he's technically a subcontractor, then it's his bad for not carrying subcontractor insurance. His employer, if they are a bonded contractor, is required by law to carry insurance to protect against that sort of thing, so it sounds to me like his employer is just trying to get out of having to put an insurance claim in and trying to pass the buck to him.

That said, they could fire him for it instead, so it might not be worth pursuing legal action, but what they are doing is technically illegal.

[Disco Pickle]

exactly what I thought when he told me.  I've heard of companies taking money out of your paycheck if you loose a piece of their equipment, things of that nature, but $6000 to fix a dent in steel and prime and paint it is pretty damn far fetched. 

He never saw an invoice for the repair job, and they made him sign something agreeing to take the money every week.  I think he was just terrified of loosing his job and they pay him enough to where $100/wk isn't going to hurt him.

he's also apparently butted heads with his boss, and thinks it has to do with the fact that he's one of 3 english speaking laborers working at this oil field, his boss being hispanic as well.  of course, it could also be that he's a really difficult son of a bitch to get along with.  constant back pain and just being an all around bloody cunt means he's probably opened his mouth once or twice when he should have kept it shut.

I've already told him that since he signed something, he's basically fucked.  He could quit and let them try and sue him for it, but that's self defeating.

Don't know why they wouldn't let him fix it.  The man's a master welder and has been painting show cars his entire life.

I'm thinking someone probably DID file an insurance claim, and they're doubling up at his expense, but I'll never be able to prove it.

Thing is, he's out in Texas and I wouldn't really be able to help him from here