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Clerks Sue Over Pay, but Too Late

By William Vogeler, Esq. on October 12, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Nobody likes to leave money on the table.

In a card game, you might expect to lose money once in a while. But when your employer shorts you, that's something else.

So when two city clerks sued for $22,000 in unused sick pay, they expected to get it back. Instead, they got a bad hand.

Bad Hand

Susan Seminone and Cindy Ostrander worked in Gloversville, a small city that was once the glove-making capital of the United States. Go figure.

Only they didn't figure that they would lose their sick pay. The city passed a resolution in 2011 that ended payouts for unused sick pay for non-union personnel.

Seminone and Ostrander apparently didn't realize it at the time. When they finished their terms as city employees in 2016, they found out.

They sued -- Seminone for 299 hours and Ostrander for 591 hours -- but the judge said it was too late. Their attorney said they got a bad deal.

Bad Deal

Ronald Schur Jr. said Gloversville has one of the worst reputations in New York state. He said the case illustrates why people are disillusioned by government.

"It's ridiculous," he told the Daily Gazette. "Why would they have sued the city while they were still employed by them."

Mayor Dayton King said the city did nothing wrong and everything right, but he needed something to crow about.

Last month, King pleaded guilty to second-degree harassment over his campaign tactics in the last election.

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