A former employer redirected allotments from my pay that were supposed to go in my 401k. The money went into other obligations of the company. I wasn't the only one they did this to.

Several of us contacted U.S. Dept of Labor and for the last 18 months have been getting letters every 3 months from USDOL stating that the investigation is still ongoing.

Funny thing is my former employer has gone tits up and exists in name only. Kinda pissed me off when I looked on Facebook and saw the former President at various professional sporting events prior to Covid.

My states small claims limit is more than what I am owed so am considering going that route instead of continuing to wait on the Feds to recoup my money.

Any tips about small claims court much appreciated.

Small claims is a civil court. You can only get whatever their max is.

But I would be collecting all the info and submit that to State AG. Probably some State and Fed violations in their actions.

if the employer has gone tits up, why do you think you could collect a judgment from them if you did win?

This.

Sueing is one thing; collecting is another. There are dozens of ways that "regular guys" like you and me can avoid payment of a small claims award; for example, my income is SS and retirement, both of which are protected against collections. I once worked with a scoundrel who kept ownership of his cars in his father's name; he had no other valuables, and changed jobs as soon as someone garnished his wages.

Now you seem to have a corporation or LLC which doesn't exist anymore; it likely has no assets anywhere. Good luck, it's as if  a person who owed you money died penniless.

There IS a legal process called "piercing the corporate veil." You will have to spend some money on an attorney to do this.

As I understand it: a corporation is legally a person, with many of the protections of a person. Under law, the corporation and the owners & operators are separate beings, and it takes a significant effort to prove that the corporation was set up in order to defraud other people, i.e. you or its customers. @Aimless is the person to ask this question.

But it'll likely cost more than it's worth, and possibly take longer than your natural life span to complete the case.

This.  Your former employer is likely judgement proof and the owners/managers will be shielded from any civil suit you file.

Now that said, those same owners and/or managers are NOT personally shielded from civil and criminal penalties from the DOL for redirecting your 401k contributions for company use.  Unfortunately this is a case where you have to be patient.

Employer went tits up as in nothing left? Liquidated assets and dissolved? Or went insolvent and sold what was left?

If it's the latter, new owners inherit the liability. Had this happen to a friend. New owners of an insolvent DOD contractor unknowingly inherited the liability and DOL forced them to pay it all back. Be forewarned, the timeline for repayment will be generous for them. IIRC, about 3 months of employee contributions were illegally kept by his employer and the new owners were given 3 years (after the lengthy investigation) to make those contributions to their 401Ks.

You can try a skammed.com report to see if the employer settles for a quick report take down as people don't like their name out there in the algos.  Even if you can win a favorable judgement in small claims court, you will still have to collect it and be out of pocket along the way.  YMMV

arfcom rule = get both

Opie needs to talk to an employment lawyer in his state. Some states have corporate veal piercing laws that impose individual liability for anything that is considered wage theft or non-payment of wage. I'm litigating one of those very cases right now is a closely held LLC. I'm suing both the nearly non-existent LLCs and the individual owners.

Speech to text so ignore the typos

Everything was liquidated. Owners, CEO, P/VP and management are in the wind. I think there are one or two people that answer a phone. Another company was supposed to "absorb" the company I was with (the correct term escapes me), but that didn't happen due to legal issues and they couldn't completely dissolve. Last I checked they were still a business entity per the state.

Last year I did get a large check from the proposed take-over company to pay for 240 hours of leave time I had accrued and didn't get paid for when I left the company. So maybe to some degree they are responsible for the other companies liabilities.  

ERISA bond?