Alaska Employment Law

We earlier covered Todd Palin’s interest in the wage claims filed against Great Bear Ford, the Soldotna car dealership owned Bob Favretto, described by a Palin official as somebody “who served on your Disaster Cabinet.”

Here’s an overview of what happened with those claims, based on documents released to AEL by the Wage & Hour office of the Alaska Department of Labor.   

The wage claims started coming into the Anchorage Wage & Hour office in March of 2007.  W&H Investigator Kim Aure sent a claim to the employer on April 12th.  The 16 claimants asked for $34k in wages and vacation pay.  [Update: In August 2007 the State filed suit in Kenai Small Claims Court against both Great Bear and Favretto.  Defendants then moved the cases to Formal Rules.]  On October 18, 2007, Great Bear’s attorney, Greg Oczkus, offered to confess judgment in the full amount of the claims in return for dismissal with prejudice of any claim against Favretto, the 100 % owner of the business.  Oczkus represented that Favretto was personally liable for $1.25m in defaulted loans associated with the business.  [Update: After Wage & Hour researched Favretto’s role in the business], the State accepted Oczkus’s offer.  Judgment was entered against only Great Bear on December 21, 2007.  Two weeks later, on January 4th, Great Bear filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  W&H filed a claim in bankruptcy for unsecured, non-priority debt on January 30th.  At last report, the claimants had received no money.

Todd Palin’s inquiry about the wage claims occurred in June of 2007.

02/11/10 update:  There’s no record of Favretto filing bankruptcy in the District of Alaska. 

Thanks to DOL Investigator Aure for additional information.