'AITA for suing my pregnant sister for not paying me to look after her sick father-in-law?'
"AITA for leaving the hospital and not looking after my sister’s father in law?"
My older sister’s father in law recently had a hip replacement surgery and has been in the hospital for over two weeks now, it’s taking him a lot to recover and they’re saying he’s probably going to stay a couple of days more.
I’m a 20 year old college student and for like 7 months now I’ve had this job at our local hospital where I watch over patients with mental health issues and people that attempt, I can also take on personal patients at a higher rate, my brother in law asked me to look after his dad, I told him my rate and he said he’d pay it all at once after his dad gets released. I was fine with it.
His dad was actually pretty chill and cool and he’s a funny guy, I mostly work nights so I also study, he actually sleeps at night which compared to normal patients I get is a dream.
Last night I was over there and he didn’t feel like sleeping, so we were just chilling and talking, he said how nice it was for me to volunteer to keep him company, I was confused and told him that I was working and that brother in law was going to pay me for it. He looked confused as well and told me that my sister and her husband told him I volunteered to help family out.
I excused myself and called my sister to see what the hell was going on, at first she denied it but quickly said that it’s true, she said money was tight right now for them with two kids and a third on the way and that her husband didn’t want his dad all alone there and since I was already at the hospital he felt that I should just stay with him.
I told her that’s over two weeks with just one night off and most of them were 10-12 hours, easily worth more than 2k at the rate I gave them, she actually told me to consider it a gift for their unborn baby. I lost it and called her husband, he was shameless about it and said that it wasn’t real work anyway since he was sleeping most of the time and that he’ll never pay me my stupid rate.
I never had a written contract with him because I thought he was a man of his word but clearly I was very wrong. After that I took my stuff and went straight home, I was so mad I didn’t even say bye to him.
My dad says it was an absolute shitty thing to do and he yelled at both of them, he even offered to talk to his lawyer buddy if I wanted to take them to small claims over this, and honestly I’m considering it because over two weeks of everyday shifts is insane for me and was so mentally exhausting.
I usually work 3-4 8-hour shifts a week, plus I’m a college student and unlike my older siblings I didn’t get a college fund or any kind of help from my parents because mom got cancer and they had to use my entire college fund and most of their savings on treatments, she still passed away last year, I loved her a lot so I didn’t mind them fighting to the end even though it sucked for me, I still miss her a lot.
My sister called me an a$$hole for leaving her father in law alone, he does get lonely And still needs help to go to the bathroom and just to move in general, I told her it’s none of my problem and that I’m not a servant for any of them, and that they had to pay me now, she called me heartless and that I’m putting a pregnant woman under stress.
Would I be the AH here if I do take them to small claims over this even though she’s my sister and pregnant?
This is what people had to say to OP:
redditnamexample said:
Definitely take them to small claims court. FAFO.
jinxxed42 said:
They lied and told you they would pay you.. and NEVER HAD ANY INTENTION OF GIVING YOU ANYTHING. This is awful. take them to court
KrissytheFish said:
They cost you 2 weeks of income. If they hadn't tricked you into working for them. Plus, that's a tremendous amount of hours for a student. When were you sleeping?
OP responded:
I barely got any sleep.
Realistic_Store9122 said:
NTA Tell sis the stress she feels now ain't nothing like the stress she'll feel in small claims court. Go LC for now, it will be NC after court. I'm sure of that!
OP responded:
She’ll probably have to pay for my legal fees on top of that as well
lmmontes said:
They lie to you for free labor and then call you an AH?!! Unless there was some danger for him being alone, NTA.
OP responded:
No danger, he just would have called for the nurses to help him to the bathroom, he’s a big guy so they probably hated that
DrNoMadZ said:
Yes to small claims. Thank goodness your father is supportive of you. Hopefully he can lean on them until they do the right thing.
And Jazzlike_Adeptness_1 said:
Before you bring up court, Email sister and BIL separately, saying you can't believe he lied that he'd pay you for watching his father and then told you he never intended to pay you. That you can't believe he'd do that to you.
Hopefully one of them incriminates themself.
Then you'll have written proof.