As a general proposition, under Connecticut law an employer has the right to determine the wage that will be paid for work performed by an employee, subject to basic requirements such as minimum wage or overtime. For wages that are paid as commissions, this means that the employer determines in its commission plan both how commissions are calculated and when they are paid. By accepting the job, the employee acknowledges the commission plan as the wage agreement between the employer and the employee.
These legal principles may be different in other states; for example, California law dictates that the right to a commission accrues at the time of sale. But in Connecticut, the sales commission plan can establish when a commission is due and payable, including that it may not be payable if the employee no longer works for the employer.. An example is the commission plan involved in the recent Connecticut Supreme Court decision in the case of Geysen v. Securitas Security Services USA, Inc., 322 Conn. 385, decided on August 9, 2016. Under that plan, the plaintiff’s weekly compensation was a combination of a base salary and commissions flowing from security services contracts that the plaintiff had procured. The plan stated that commissions would be paid to the employee when the customer was invoiced, but would cease with termination of employment (in effect, no residual payment of commissions even though the service contract remained active).
The plaintiff was terminated from employment, and sued the employer pursuant to the Connecticut statute for...
