§ 5252.Discrimination against employees and prospective employees based upon wage assignment or income execution.

A worker whose wages are being garnished, or who is being sued over an unpaid debt, still needs the job that makes any of it collectable. CPLR 5252 protects that job. It bars an employer from discharging, laying off, refusing to promote, or disciplining an employee, or refusing to hire a prospective employee, because one or more wage assignments or income executions have been served, or because of a pending action or judgment over an unpaid contractual debt.

Where the discrimination involves an income execution or income deduction order issued under CPLR 5241 or 5242 specifically, a court can also impose a civil penalty on the employer, up to five hundred dollars for a first violation and up to a thousand dollars for each later one, payable to the creditor and enforceable the same way as a civil judgment.

Separately, subdivision 2 gives the affected employee or job applicant their own civil action for damages, which has to be brought within ninety days of the violation. Recoverable damages are capped at six weeks of lost wages, and the court can also order reinstatement of a discharged employee or that a prospective employee be hired. Except for the carve-out in CPLR 5241(g), no more than ten percent of whatever the employee recovers in that action can be reached by that employee's own creditors, judgment creditors, or assignees. A violation can also be punished as contempt of court under Judiciary Law section 753.