Commission Forfeiture After Sciborski: The Liability Theory Nobody's Raising

California dealerships routinely condition commission payments on continued employment through deal funding. Under Sciborski v. Pacific Bell Directory, this practice is almost certainly unlawful — but it's rarely raised.

The timing mismatch is structural: a salesperson closes a deal (negotiates price, gets signatures, hands off to F&I), but the commission isn't paid until the financing funds — which can take weeks. If the salesperson leaves between closing and funding, most dealership commission plans forfeit the commission on the pending deal.

Under Sciborski, commissions are earned when the employee completes the work entitling them to the commission — not when the employer receives payment or when a subsequent contingency occurs. Applied to car sales: the commission is arguably earned at closing, not funding. Conditioning payment on continued employment through funding constitutes an unlawful forfeiture.

The exposure analysis requires tracing every departed salesperson's pending deals at departure, whether those deals subsequently funded, and whether the departed salesperson was paid. This forensic work is labor-intensive but devastating when it reveals a pattern. In one analysis, the supervising partner — a practitioner with decades of wage-and-hour experience — noted he had never seen this issue raised.