A Georgia auto mechanic paid an employee’s final paycheck by dumping 91,500 oily pennies in his driveway is now being ordered to dish out $40,000 in additional back wages and damages.
Miles Walker, the owner of A OK Walker Autoworks in Peachtree City, Ga., was ordered by a federal judge to pay $39,934 in back pay and damages, the Labor Department said in a statement.
Part of the sum pertains to a lawsuit the Department of Labor filed against Walker in 2022 for retaliating against ex-staffer Andreas Flaten, who quit his job at the auto shop after an altercation with Walker the year prior.
Flaten said he was owed $915, which Walker refused to pay at first, according to the suit that was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
“How can you make this guy realize what a disgusting example of a human being he is?” Walker added before the lightbulb seemingly went off.
“I’ve got plenty of pennies. I’ll use them,” he said, according to the court documents.
Walker then finally paid Flaten the three-figure sum by dumping 915,000 oil-drenched pennies that weighed a whopping 500 pounds into Flaten’s driveway.
The mound of farthings was accompanied by a pay stub marked with an expletive.
Walker also posted “defamatory statements” about Flaten on the company’s website, calling him a “subpar ex-employee” and suggesting he stole or killed an animal as reason for why he sought his final paycheck, the suit said.
A portion of the $40,000 in damages will be paid to Flaten, while the rest will be distributed among eight other former A OK enmployees who were deprived of overtime pay when they worked past their scheduled hours.
According to the Department of Labor’s overtime policy, workers must be compensated “no less than time and one-half their regular rates pay” when they work more than 40 hours in a week.
The Post has reached out to A OK Walker Autoworks for comment.
Based on reviews of the auto body shop on Google, it’s not the first time Walker resorted to pennies as a means of retaliation.
A one-star review shared one year ago by a man named Cliff says that shortly after he went to the shop to get his oil changed, his motor seized.
When he called Walker to get a refund, “he tells me to finally come pick up my refund and he throws pennies all over my back seat and says, Here’s your refund.’”
In response to a slew of other disgruntled reviewers sharing their poor experience with the car-servicing company, the “response from the owner” says the shop is “unable to locate any vehicle or any service with your name referenced.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
