Mississippi Code 91-7-323 provides a way for an employer to pay the wages of a deceased employee. The statute provides that: "When any person, male or female, shall die leaving wages, salary or other compensation due him, it shall be lawful for the debtor to pay said wages, salary or other compensation to the wife or husband, as the case may be, of said deceased creditor if he or she leaves a wife or husband, as the case may be, surviving him or her; and if he or she shall leave no wife or husband surviving him or her, then to his or her children if adults; and if he or she shall leave no children and no wife or husband surviving him or her, then to his or her mother; and if he or she shall leave no wife or husband or children or mother surviving him or her, then to his or her father; and if he or she shall leave no wife or children or husband or mother or father surviving him or her, then to his or her brothers and sisters if adults. If such creditor shall have left no wife, husband, children, nor brothers nor sisters, nor father nor mother surviving him "or her, or if any of his or her children surviving him or her shall be minors, or if any of his or her brothers or sisters surviving him or her, entitled to inherit, shall be minors, then it shall be lawful for said debtor to pay said wages, salary or other compensation to the chancery clerk of the county in which said creditor resided at the time of his or her death, or of the county where he or she died.".
There are not too many people familiar with this statute. However, many employers are not comfortable, perhaps rightly, over turning over wages without an estate open.
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