He Paid Up in Pennies, Now Faces Lawsuit

Federal government sues owner of body shop who gave worker last payment in the coins
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 24, 2021 1:50 PM CDT
Updated Jan 7, 2022 4:15 PM CST
Man Says Ex-Boss Paid Him in 500 Pounds of Gross Pennies
Would you take the time to clean them off?   (Getty Images)

Update: The US Department of Labor agrees that an auto body shop shouldn't have settled up with a former employee in pennies. So it filed a federal lawsuit Dec. 30 against Miles Walker and his A OK Walker Autoworks in Peachtree City, saying the dump was retribution after Andreas Flaten complained to the government that he hadn't received his last paycheck, NBC reports. The suit doesn't mention the condition of the coins, which were covered in oil or grease. It gets worse for Walker. The department said it found the shop hadn't been paying overtime it owed employees since at least April 2019. Our original story from March 2021 follows:

Revenge is a dish best served cold—or greasy, perhaps. A Fayetteville, Georgia, man tells CBS 46 that he gave his two weeks' notice at A OK Walker Autoworks in November 2020 but hadn't been sent his last paycheck in January as promised, a fact that prodded him to reach out to the Georgia Department of Labor. Andreas Flaten did end up getting the $915 he was expecting, just in a most unexpected format. Flaten says a 500-pound pile of oil- or grease-covered pennies was left on his driveway. He tells Fox 5 Atlanta the pile of more than 90,000 coins was accompanied by an envelope with f--- you written on the outside and his final paystub within.

Fox 5 says the autoshop owner would only confirm that Flaten was paid what he was owed in US currency. As for Flaten, he says he now spends time each night working to rid the 91,515 pennies of their slick coating using a mix of dish soap, vinegar, and water. It's apparently quite the effort: He says working his way through several hundred took 90 minutes, and that he won't be able to cash them until they're clean. (More strange stuff stories.)

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