Bonuses are at the discretion of the employer and are paid out in accordance with the employer's policy. This means that if you need to remain employed to collect the bonus, then you do not have a great chance of recovering the bonus. You have a decent argument for them to buy out the phone contract since you were forced to acquire it and you did so, thus you detrimentally relied on their paying for the phone. As far as sick days, PA does not consider sick days part of wages nor does it consider unused vacation days as wages to be paid upon Termination, but if the employer has done so in the past or has a policy that it will be paid, then the courts will force them to pay.

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Welcome to the club as I was in the exact same situation last year. You can argue that at the very least you should receive the 2007 bonus and possibly a pro-rated 2008bonus based upon your written employment agreement, since it does not specify that you have to be employed by a certain date to be eligible and, as you know, any abiguities in a contract are held against the drafter of the contract. You have a written contract regarding at the very least the 2007 bonus, which you should have already been paid by now. The 2008 bonus may be arguable on their end if you did not remain employed for the entire 2008. Thus, on that part you can sue for breach of contract and their promises were at least some evidence that the bonus would be paid.

As far as the separation package, the employer can put a deadline on it and generally the law holds that they must give at least 21 days for the employee to consider the package and have the opportunity to have it reviewed by an attorney before siging if this is an ordinary lay off and if it is a Reduction in Force, the employee gets 45 days to review and sign. Once the employee signs, they then have 7 days to rescind their agreement to accept the severance and must do so in writing. After the 21 days is up the employer can revoke the offer if it has not been signed, but once signed the employer cannot revoke the offer only the employee can rescind it.

It certainly does "suck" and after my firm closed and left me with zero severance and zero pay for unused vacation, I had to end up hanging my own shingle so things are rough in the law business.

I know. Thank you.