The state of New York has put out tough new legislation aiming to combat sexual harassment in the workplace. The new laws, approved by the New York State Legislature this past March and signed into law last week, cover a wide angle of issues from training and prevention to appropriate claim forms and investigation policies for when a sexual harassment complaint arises at work. After a sordid year of employees and individuals nationwide stepping forward to report ...
Continue Reading →19 MAR
Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP filed a lawsuit against ASM USA, Inc., a company which provides outsourced customer service solutions for luxury brands worldwide. The collective action lawsuit seeks to recover overtime compensation and other damages on behalf of Brand Ambassadors, Ecommerce Specialists and Customer Service Representatives (“Covered Employees”) who worked for the Company. The Complaint alleges that these employees were required to work more than 40 hours a week, but were not properly compensated for overtime pay.
To carry out ...
Continue Reading →15 MAR
This gender discrimination case, filed in 2016, alleged that the former prominent law firm of Chadbourne & Parke LLP willfully discriminated against the firm’s female partners by paying them less than their similarly situated male counterparts. The plaintiffs, Kerrie Campbell, Jaroslawa Johnson, and Mary Yelenick, brought this case under the Equal Pay Act and gender discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Law.
The legal battle recently came to an end between Chadbourne’s successor firm, Norton Rose Fulbright, ...
Continue Reading →1 MAR
On Feb 27, 2018, the District Judge accepted the Magistrate Judge’s decision to conditionally certify a collective action against Bar Louie. This will allow Plaintiffs to send notice of the lawsuit with an opportunity to opt-in to all current or former servers or bartenders employed by Bar Louie from August 26, 2013 to the present. Affected workers will have the option of participating in this lawsuit with the possibility of recovering potential owed wages.
The lawsuit which was filed back in ...
Continue Reading →10 JAN
The Beatrice Inn , a critically acclaimed high end “chop house” restaurant located in New York City, has just been hit with a class action lawsuit in order to help recover owed wages. The lawsuit alleges that the Beatrice Inn owes its employees minimum wages, overtime compensation, misappropriated tips, and other damages. Affected workers include captains, bartenders, barbacks, and other similarly situated non-managerial employees, commonly referred to as “tipped workers”. Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP, the employment law firm handling the ...
Continue Reading →7 DEC
The acclaimed chain Haru restaurants of New York have landed themselves in a bit of hot water after a recent wage lawsuit claims they have been paying tipped workers less than the full minimum wage in conjunction with other pay issues. These wage claims violate the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”), federal and state laws, designed to protect worker rights. Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP filed this class action lawsuit yesterday which intends ...
Continue Reading →6 DEC
Nearly 400 hard working New Yorkers in the construction industry are set to receive unpaid wages totaling over $1.2 million discovered through investigations started on January 1st of this year. Through a partnered effort between the District attorneys of all NYC, Westchester and Nassau Counties, this investigation has resulted in numerous indictments across several jurisdictions with nearly $700,000 already returned to affected workers. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s call for a crackdown in the industry was in response to ...
Continue Reading →22 NOV
After being hit with a disability discrimination lawsuit, American Airlines and Envoy Air, its largest regional carrier, have just agreed to settle the nationwide class action lawsuit. The airlines will pay $9.8 million in stock to hundreds of its employees who claimed they were victims of disability discrimination. If cashed out now, the stock would be worth over $14 million.
This disability discrimination lawsuit was filed through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that advances ...
Continue Reading →24 OCT
Oil and gas workers of a major Canadian based energy company have settled a lawsuit for overtime claims in Colorado. The Canadian company, Ensign Energy service, was accused of wrongfully classifying these oil and gas workers as salaried employees. Even though the company can pay these types of workers a salary, their job duties must keep them exempt them from receiving overtime pay. In this situation, the oil and gas workers were being paid a salary, but ...
Continue Reading →18 OCT
In light of the recent outpouring of sexual harassment claims within the entertainment industry, many might be left wondering what steps can be taken if they have or are currently dealing with this kind of abuse in the workplace. When deciding whether or not to report the sexual harassment many may not feel safe reporting their claim. Your place of employment may have a human resources department which can address your complaints but many smaller companies may ...
Continue Reading →