Second Circuit Holds Gristede’s CEO, John Catsimatidis Personally Liable for Employees Lost Overtime Wages
On July 9, 2013, the Second Circuit affirmed the Southern District of New York (S.D.N.Y.) decision in Torres v. Gristede’s Operating Corp. that Gristede’s Foods, Inc. (“Gristedes”) CEO, John Catsimatidis qualifies as an “employer” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In so holding, the Second Circuit, made Catsimatidis personally liable for any wage and hour claims brought by Gristede’s employees.
Torres v. Gristede’s Operating Corp. arose from a wage-and-hour dispute between Gristede’s and its employees. In 2004, a group of then-current and former employees of Gristedes filed suit in the S.D.N.Y. alleging that Gristedes operating companies, CEO Catsimatidis, District Manager James Monos, and Gristede’s Vice President Gallo Balseca had unlawfully failed to pay class members proper overtime premium compensation for all hours that they worked in excess of forty in a workweek. After two-and-a-half years of litigation, the District Court granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs and held that the Plaintiffs were entitled to liquidated damages. Plaintiffs eventually moved for partial summary judgment on Catsimatidis’s personal liability as an employer.
The District Court eventually granted the motion stating that “[t]here is no area of Gristede’s which is not subject to [Catsimatidis’s] control” and that, therefore, Catsimatidis “had operational control and, as such, may be held to be an employer.” The Court went on to list some of the specific reasons Catsimatidis qualifies as an employer, which included the fact that Catsimatidis “hired managerial employees,” “signed all paychecks to the class members,” had the “power to close or sell Gristede’s stores,” and “routinely review[ed] financial reports, work[ed] at his office in Gristede’s corporate office and generally preside[d] over the day to day operations of the company.”
Catsimatidis appealed the S.D.N.Y. decision to the Second Circuit on the ground that he did not meet the definition of “employer” under the FLSA. In the appeal, Catsimatidis argued that a FLSA “employer” must exercise decision making in a “day-to-day” capacity and he was simply a high-level employee who made symbolic or, at most, general corporate decisions that only affected the lives of the Plaintiffs through an attenuated chain of but-for causation.
The Second Circuit, declined to reverse the S.D.N.Y. decision. In so holding, the Court emphasized that Catsimatidis’s involvement in the company’s daily operations merits far more than the symbolic or ceremonial characterization. More specifically, the court noted that, Catsimatidis had authority over management, supervision, and Gristede’s affairs in general, as well as evidence that reflected his exercise of direct control over the employees as determined by the “economic reality” test.
The Court held Catsimatidis had authority over Gristede’s affairs in general by showing his role in the company and his impact on the way business was done. The Court noted that Catsimatidis was considered by all that worked at Gristede’s to have the same “privileges an owner of a company has” to “make ultimate decisions as to how the company is run,” and that there was “no reason to believe that if he chose to make a decision anybody there has the power to override him.” The Court also noted that although he did not exercise managerial control in stores on the day-to-day level of a manager, the evidence demonstrated that he exercised influence in specific stores on multiple occasions as he would make visits to five or ten stores once per week and would address problems that occurred in individual stores.
The Court further held Catsimatidis exercised control over Gristede’s employees by showing that he satisfied two of the four key factors used in Carter v. Dutchess Community College. More specifically, the Court agreed that Catsimatidis had the power to hire and fire store employees as well as determine the rate and method of payment. The Court decided these two Carter factors are key to deciding whether or not someone qualifies as having “operational control” over employees.
For practitioners, the most important lesson is simple. If you are representing employees that work under bosses that actively demonstrate their total control over the company, they will ultimately be held to be “employers” that are personally responsible for any wage-and-hour violations. Going forward, an executive claiming they are not an employer because they hire other managers to handle wage and hour issues will not in of itself be sufficient to avoid liability.
Fitapelli & Schaffer has successfully represented many service employees working at restaurants, bars and nightclubs, recovering unpaid overtime, tips and wages. If you believe your employer has retained wages belonging to employees, please contact the NYC Employment lawyers of Fitapelli & Schaffer for a free consultation.