Unpaid Commissions Cases

Pepper Law, PLC is a Nashville based law firm which handles all types of unpaid commissions cases for both clients seeking unpaid commissions and clients defending claims for allegedly unpaid commissions. The firm handles unpaid commissions cases in Nashville and throughout Tennessee. Cases involving unpaid commissions are almost always breach of contract cases. Employing a lawyer or law firm with extensive experience in breach of contract cases is important if you are involved in an unpaid commissions lawsuit.

For most cases involving unpaid commissions, the Tennessee six year statute of limitations will apply. Where the commissions were to be paid for separate sales or transactions, it is possible that the six year statute of limitations began running at different times for different sales or transactions. Until you have obtained the advice of a lawyer or law firm familiar with statutes of limitations deadlines for cases involving unpaid commissions, you should not make any assumptions about statutes of limitations deadlines.

In appropriate cases, under Tennessee law, not only can past unpaid commissions be recovered, but also, commissions due on future sales, premiums or transactions can be recovered. If successful in an unpaid commissions case, a plaintiff may also be awarded pre-judgment interest, court costs and discretionary costs.

In many cases, a sales representative or employee may not discover, until years after commissions were payable, that his or her commissions have been calculated incorrectly and that he or she has been underpaid. Both the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allow broad discovery into financial records and documents, so obtaining financial records in unpaid commissions cases is usually not difficult. By obtaining “source” financial documents, it is possible to prove the underpayment of sales commissions.

In Tennessee, unless there is written agreement providing that the prevailing party in a lawsuit, including an unpaid commissions lawsuit, is entitled to a payment of attorney’s fees from the non-prevailing party, the prevailing party will not receive reimbursement for its attorney’s fees, except in rare cases.

Unpaid commissions may also be recovered in cases where the agreement to pay commissions was not reduced to writing, but was verbal. Moreover, Tennessee courts have allowed the recovery of unpaid commissions where there was not even a verbal agreement under quantum meruit and implied contract theories. Under quantum meruit and implied contract theories, unpaid commissions may be recovered where, for example, there was a course of conduct of paying commissions even where there was no agreement to do so or where the commissions actually paid were greater than the amount agreed to in writing.

Where the commission involved the sale of a business which included real estate, it is possible that the Tennessee Real Estate Broker License Act may apply to prohibit the receipt of a commission by someone without a real estate broker’s license.

The Nashville based law firm, Pepper Law, PLC, handles all types of unpaid commissions cases across all industries, businesses and professions in Nashville and throughout Tennessee.