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F&S is pleased to announce that Judge Hellerstein has signed off on a stipulation allowing court-authorized notice to be sent to over 600 current and former employees of celebrity chef Daniel Boulud’s restaurants: Daniel, DBGB, Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud. If a person joins the case, they will be able to seek remedies for unpaid minimum wage, overtime, tips and spread of hours.
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We are pleased to report that Judge McMahon has granted our motion for Rule 23 Class Certification for all tipped and kitchen workers who have worked at Public House, Butterfield 8, Tammany Hall and Wicker Park in the past six years. We will be sending notices shortly advising employees of their ability to participate and recover if a settlement is reached. Restaurant workers should be aware that they are able to bring claims for ...
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On November 20, 2012, Fitapelli & Schaffer filed a class action lawsuit against The Riese Organization, Inc., who owns and/or operates 10 T.G.I. Friday’s in Manhattan. T.G.I. Friday’s is a popular restaurant brand with more than 500 locations worldwide. This lawsuit alleges that T.G.I. Friday’s failed to pay proper minimum wages, overtime pay, spread-of-hours pay, and call in pay to servers, bussers, runners, bartenders, barbacks and other tipped workers as required under the federal ...
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Fitapelli & Schaffer filed a class and collective action against Chipotle Mexican Grill, a “fast casual” restaurant chain with over 1300 locations nationwide. The lawsuit alleges that Chipotle failed to pay their Apprentices and Assistant Managers proper overtime compensation by misclassifying them as exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Laws. We allege that Salaried Apprentices performed the same work as hourly employees, primarily working ...
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On November 15, 2012, Fitapelli & Schaffer filed a class and collective action lawsuit against Legends Hospitality, LLC and New York Yankees Partnership (collectively, “Yankees”). The lawsuit alleges that Yankees led their customers to believe that the mandatory service charge during private catering events was a gratuity that would be distributed to the Banquet Servers. However, the Yankees retained a portion of this gratuity/service charge. Moreover, the Yankees failed to pay its Banquet Servers ...
Continue Reading →Kramer v. Trans-Lux Corp., No. 3:11cv1424 (SRU) (D. Conn. Sept. 25, 2012)
A Federal Court in a recent case gave an expansive interpretation of the whistleblower protections under the Dodd-Frank Act. Some fear that this ruling will allow more employees to qualify as whistleblowers and, therefore, be afforded the protections of Dodd-Frank from retaliation by their employer. A “whistleblower” is any individual who provides information relating to a violation of the securities laws to the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”). ...
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Fitapelli & Schaffer filed a lawsuit today in Supreme Court Bronx County against the New York Yankees and Legends Hospitality for failing to pay proper wages and gratuities to in-seat servers. The lawsuit was filed on behalf on 32 workers, many of which are current employees. According to the lawsuit, the Yankees and Legends failed to pay the 20% service charge or administrative fee that was automatically added to the menu prices to in-seat ...
Continue Reading →On September 11, 2012, Swiss banker Bradley Birkenfeld announced that the IRS will pay him $104 million as a whistleblower reward for the information he provided to the U.S. government. Under the IRS whistleblower program, informants are entitled to a percentage of the dollar amount recovered by the U.S. government when fraud is exposed. The information supplied by Birkenfeld uncovered a secretive private wealth management division of the Swiss Bank UBS. This division of UBS would help U.S. clients evade ...
Continue Reading →Hasan v. GPM Investments, LLC, No. 3:07 cv 1779 (SRU) (D. Conn. Aug. 27, 2012).
The Court’s decision in this case benefits employees by helping them recover more money for their unpaid overtime wages. The dispute dealt with how to calculate damages when an employer misclassified workers as exempt from overtime compensation. The employer argued the damages should be calculated using the fluctuating work week method. If an employee worked 52 hours per week and was paid a ...
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On August 10, 2012, Fitapelli & Schaffer filed a class and collective action lawsuit against The Dinex Group and Daniel Boulud, the world-renowned celebrity chef. The lawsuit alleges that Boloud’s restaurants, including Bar Boloud fail to pay proper minimum wage, overtime and spread of hours to tipped restaurant workers. Many of these violations stem from non-tip eligible employees participating in the tip pool, including polishers, expediters and the Maitre’ D. Under New York law, ...
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