Would an honest researcher actually have to pay back their salary?

Question

Recently, I read the answer by Hexal to the following question here: Not including student who contributed very little as coauthor of paper and I was scared. Much more than scared, I could not sleep the following night. In the question, a project leader asks whether or not he should include a visiting student who showed "good motivation", but did not contribute anything to a certain project as a coauthor (to one of the project's papers).

There is a downvoted answer with -40, saying that if the student writes that she wants to be a coauthor, the project leader should write her an e-mail:

[...] Therefore, we would appreciate it if you return the salary you received for the internship. Please transfer USD ... to the account ... until .... If we don't see a reverse payment, we feel necessitated to undertake legal steps. Thank you for your cooperation.

Now, this answer is downvoted. I am also not sure if the downvotes/comments are because this approach is not appropriate for the given situation or not appropriate in general.

This scared me a lot. I always thought that one would never have to pay back earned money (except for extreme reasons, like fraud probably?).

Now, I do not plan to not work. But I know some asshole professors who, when their students say that they do something else on their weekends than working, they tell the whole faculty that their student is not working. I've never heard of someone asking back for money, though. However, I am scared now that I will work for such a professor, we do not manage to write a paper together and then they make me to pay my salaries back after some time, which I cannot afford.

So, my questions:

1. Are such threats something that happens sometimes / often?

2. (I would probably be scared enough if I got such a letter since lawyers are expensive but) Did students ever go to court because of such a letter and do judges approve this?

3. Are things like this supported by universities or their legal departments?

I would be interested in answers about the situation all over the world – if this is not possible, I would be interested in Europe and Northern America.

Answer 1

No, that answer is ridiculous.

In North America, as long as you were working honestly*, the only reason you would ever have to return money is if you were accidentally overpaid (i.e. they paid you more money than you earned).

* I assume you aren't actually trying to commit fraud

Answer 2

I am afraid demanding for payment return is a last-resort practice in some places.

I feel obliged to add my recent bad experience as a postdoc in China here. Although this has not happened to me, I was informally warned by colleagues that if I displeased PIs badly enough they might find reasons to demand me to return all earned salary. The following passage is an excerpt from my contract (translated directly by Google Translate), where Party A is a university, Party B the responsible PI, and Party C was I.

Party C must transfer all personnel, salary and file records to Party A within one month after pitching, and may not boast part-time after the servant. If the relationship between personnel files is not transferred to Party A within 3 months, the salary will be suspended. Those who can not be transferred within 6 months will be treated as returned stations and the post-doctoral funds used will be refunded in full to Party A." (...)

If Party C submits his / her post due to personal reasons during the stop, he / she should apply to Party A three months in advance. After Party B and Party B agree, Party C can return his / her seat otherwise Party C will need to refund the used funds.

In reading the contract, a Chinese friend abroad wrote the following advice:

Article 2.2) It is a bit shocking, cause they ask you to put how many publications you should produce during the 2 years. Keep in mind, if you do not meet this criteria, they can do anything they want according to the contract. I suggest you to ask how strict this article is.

I in fact did as advised by my friend, ask details about the contract and salary pay. They always smiled and said "don't worry" without giving out specific info. In fact, as detailed in the other thread and further unlinked discussions online, I had a number of issues with payment, research funds, authorship, data ownership. In short research funds were not explicated from salary pay anywhere. What I did was to produce the absolutely minimum required until the end, and finally left in the best terms circumstances possible. I thought to taking the "midnight run" several times, but my home country was also in a mess at the time.

Finally I I heard that in Argentina, Brazil, and some other countries, a failing PhD student may be requested to return all received scholarship funds. I think China has a similar rule, but also nobody would answer me directly.

Answer 3

I think that the answer suggesting asking for payback was actually intended as a joke. Or if not a joke, as such, then an outrageous response to an outrageous request. Tit for tat.

In the US and some other places there is a card game called Poker that is normally played in "rounds of betting". If a person bets X then the next person has to bet X or higher. If higher it is called "raising" ("raising the bet", "raising the ante"). Often you raise the bet quite a lot to force other players out. They aren't willing to equal the bet ("call the bet"). I think that the answer you pointed to took the request for authorship as a "bet" (or an "opening") and the response was just "raising the bet" to force the first person to retreat. The suggestion was so ridiculously high that the other person would "fold" (leave the game).

That should ease your fears, I hope. On the other hand, reacting by referring to "asshole professors" won't make you popular with your faculty. Rage seldom wins in Poker, either.

Answer 4

tl;dr- Repaying earned salary is called a clawback. Usually clawback provisions have to be specified in an employment contract, and they seem pretty uncommon in academia.

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This would be a clawback:

A clawback or clawback provision is a special contractual clause typically included in employment contracts by financial firms, by which money already paid must be paid back under certain conditions. The term also is in use in bankruptcy matters where insiders may have raided assets prior to a filing, and in Medicaid, when a state recovers costs of long-term care or covered medical expenses from the estates of deceased Medicaid patients. The aim of the clause is to secure an option for an employer or trustee to limit bonuses, compensation or other remuneration in case of catastrophic shifts in business, bankruptcy, and national crisis as the financial crisis of 2007–2008, and for states to recoup the cost of administering Medicaid services.

The term clawbacks or claw backs can also be used to refer to any money or benefits that have been given out but need to be returned due to special circumstances or events, which are mentioned in a contract.

–"Clawback", Wikipedia [links and references omitted]

As noted in the above, clawback provisions typically need to be specified in an employment contract and are generally associated with particular professions, e.g. financial firms. I can't recall having seen a clawback provision noted in an academic contract before, though @Scientist's answer describes one such case.

So, unless your contract specifies a clawback provision or your country has clawing back somewhere in the legal code, it seems unlikely that there'd be a legal basis for an employer to demand for legitimately received salary to be returned.

Answer 5

I (partially) did an undergraduate research project which involved a summer course to be followed by a year of research, and which included a stipend (a couple of thousand dollars per quarter). And I failed out horribly, spectacularly--didn't even pass the five week course. Quit basically at the beginning. Not a high point for me.

When I asked the university if I should pay back the first stipend check, the answer was a definitive "no".