It took ten years, a trial, an appeal and a fraud case, but California says 136 people who lost their jobs and final paychecks when a West Sacramento printing company shut down are finally getting paid. The state Labor Commissioner’s Office announced on October 16, 2026 that it has recovered about $1,988,000 for former workers of Capital Mailing Services, Inc.
The question for anyone who worked there is whether their name is among the 136. The Labor Commissioner’s Office says it is still trying to reach former employees whose contact details have changed since the company closed in February 2016. Anyone who received a letter from the office should complete and return the verification letter, and anyone who thinks they may be owed money can write to [email protected].
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A closing with no notice and no final paychecks
Capital Mailing, a printing and bulk mailing company, closed permanently in February 2016. Employees were left without jobs or final pay, and the company did not give the 60 days of advance written notice that California’s Cal/WARN Act generally requires before a mass layoff. Employers that skip the notice may owe affected workers up to 60 days of backpay and lost benefits.
The Labor Commissioner’s Office sued the company and its owner, Perice Sibley, in 2018. The suit sought liquidated damages and waiting time penalties for the Cal/WARN violations and for unpaid minimum wages, and a separate fraudulent transfer action aimed at stopping the owner from moving assets out of reach.
Two recoveries, and about 50 workers in both
The $1,988,000 comes from two sources. The trial court ruled for the state in 2023, and the California Court of Appeal then affirmed a $1.3 million judgment, about 99 percent of which is designated for workers. Separately, the office collected about $688,000 from Sibley in a wage-judgment action, and 97 percent of that is designated for 82 workers.
About 50 workers are owed money from both recoveries. The state has not published individual payment amounts, so the figure that applies to any one person depends on pay records and hours from a decade ago.
What the legal terms mean for workers
Liquidated damages and waiting time penalties are extra amounts the law adds when wages are not paid on time, which is why the workers’ share can exceed the wages originally missed. A fraudulent transfer action asks a court to undo asset moves made to keep money away from people owed it. Here, the state says that action helped it collect from the owner after the company itself had no assets to pay.
What officials and a former employee said
Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower said: “Workers should not lose the wages and protections they are owed simply because a business closes its doors.” Former employee Benjamin Clark said the result is “about knowing that what happened to us mattered.”
The office’s general labor-law line is 1-833-LCO-INFO (833-526-4636), open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Workers with an unrelated unpaid-wage problem can find the state’s wage-claim filing instructions on the Labor Commissioner’s wage claim page.
Why a decade-old address is the weak point
The office is still searching for workers because addresses and phone numbers from 2016 no longer work for many people. A verification letter sent to an old address can sit unopened, and a claim that cannot be verified cannot be paid. The state has not announced a deadline for claiming the funds, which makes a prompt reply to any letter the sensible course.
Think a Capital Mailing letter is headed your way?
Ten years after the plant closed, the state is still hunting for former employees whose addresses have changed, and a verification letter that gets tossed as junk mail can hold up a payment. The state has published no deadline and no individual amounts, so the details of what arrives and when are easy to lose.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System has a claim log and payment tracker to record the letter’s date, who sent it and what it promised, plus a scam-proof checklist for confirming that a payment notice is genuine before anything is returned. Its large-print quick-start sheet keeps the steps readable.
Log your verification letter in the claim log and payment tracker →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
