A place to discuss and debate Employment Law in the USA

I’m in Hawaii, and this actually happened in November 2022. Myself and my boyfriend were helping his “friend” open a restaurant inside a hotel. We were initially hired in July to consult and get the restaurant up and running in a short period of time, and stay to help for a transition period. Total we agreed to was 2 months for $25/hour. Because she was a friend. I know now that this was a mistake.

Anyways, the 3 of us and the chef had many talks before we all came to the agreement. And the friend, let’s call her Beth, was supposed to be working with us. Long story short, she took multiple vacations and we ended up doing all the work to get it open. Worked 16 hour days. We didn’t complain to her about the vacations she was on. Just wanted to get it opened and be done with it. Beth was never there and appointed myself and my boyfriend as managers. We did not want manager positions, nor did we sign up for it, but we wanted to help her out until she found someone. About 3 weeks in, she put us each on salary for $50K, which was never discussed or agreed to. She did this right before the first paychecks were cut.

My boyfriend spoke to her about managing and he agreed to a $100K salary if she wanted him to stay on board. She promised a profit share and bonuses as well, but could not start paying the $100K and bonuses for 3 months (October/ November time), and she would play catch-up for that time. He said ok. I never had a discussion about money because I knew I would be leaving after the new year, I just called it a loss.

We had already told her when we were hired that we would be taking a 3 week vacation in September. It was already planned. When that time came, she told us she would pay us during our vacation time because we were working so hard and deserved it. And we weren’t even supposed to be still working there… We had a 2 month agreement. But I digress. Beth worked at the restaurant while we were gone.

We got back from vacation and there were paycheck problems. She was paying employees late and vendors late. Excuses for everything.

She ended up firing us when my boyfriend went to bat for her with the hotel. Basically we allowed room charges but the hotel would pay us for them, 30 days later. No problem. But they were taking forever to pay, 60+ days. And there was no money in the bank. So he asked for payment. She fired us for that. I think it was because she wasn’t paying the hotel rent, so she didn’t want to ask them for money.

We never got paid for our hourly rate for the first few weeks before she randomly decided to pay us salary (after she saw how many hours we were working). She said she would pay us for those hours. She never paid my boyfriend his full salary. She said she paid for his vacation, so that was enough.

Hawaii is an at will employment state, so I’m just wondering if she owes us that money. Unfortunately, we never signed a contract and have nothing in writing, except for text message and email exchanges.