Employer Trying To Deduct ~$1,200 From My Pay After Approved Commission (tennessee) — Do I Have To Pay This Back?

Hi everyone, I could really use some guidance here because I’m honestly pretty stressed about this situation. For background I work in sales.

I’m an hourly employee in Tennessee and have been with my company for about 6 months. About 6 weeks ago, I stepped in to take over some accounts that were having a lot of order issues. This wasn’t originally part of my role, though I took it on to help the team and reduce workload on our sales assistants.

Before doing this, I spoke directly with our VP about compensation since I would be:

Communicating with customers

Placing orders

Pulling product

Packing orders

Delivering orders

Basically handling the full process end-to-end.

The VP approved paying me commission on these accounts and told Accounts Receivable to process it. I then performed the work and was paid commission accordingly.

Fast forward to yesterday — the owner sent out a pretty aggressive email saying this was never approved by him, called it a “grossly wrong decision,” and said the commissions need to be paid back or someone could be fired.

Later that day, I was told that about $1,200 (spread across a few pay periods) will be deducted from my pay to repay these commissions. I have NOT signed anything agreeing to this.

Important details:

I have emails showing the VP approved the commission

The work was completed after that approval

The commissions were already paid out through payroll

Now they are trying to deduct future wages to recover it

The VP is now backing down under pressure from the owner

I’ve already responded professionally and asked for documentation/authorization related to the deductions, though I haven’t received anything yet.

My questions:

Can my employer legally deduct this from my paycheck without my consent?

Does this count as an “overpayment” if it was explicitly approved beforehand?

Should I refuse to sign anything if they present a repayment agreement?

At what point should I consider filing a complaint with the state labor department?

Is there a statute of limitations on a situation like this? If yes, how long?

I’m trying to handle this the right way and not overreact, though it feels really wrong to be asked to pay back money for work I was explicitly approved to do.

Any advice on how to approach this would be greatly appreciated.

Location: Tennessee