NY Court of Appeals Starbucks Decision
On June 26, 2013, the New York State Court of Appeals responded to both Barenboim v. Starbucks and Winans v. Starbucks by holding that Starbuck Baristas must share their tips with Shift Supervisors but the company may be entitled to deny those same tips to Assistant Managers. In so holding, the Court of Appeals has methodically laid out the proper line of ...
Continue Reading →On June 12, 2013, the Alycia Carrillo (“Plaintiff”) filed a complaint in U.S. Federal Court on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated that worked at The Ainsworth and Ainsworth Park (collectively, the “Ainsworth Bars”), as class representative, alleging that Paige Hospitality Group (“Defendant”) unlawfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL). The plaintiff is seeking to recover unpaid minimum wages, overtime compensation, spread of hours pay, misappropriated gratuities, misappropriated service charges, unlawful ...
Continue Reading →
S.D.N.Y. Grants Conditional Certification and Court-Authorized Notice to Tipped Employees against Ruby Tuesday Restaurants
On June 11, 2013, the U.S. Federal Court (S.D.N.Y.) granted conditional certification and court-authorized notice to potential class members in Guttentag v. Ruby Tuesday, ...
Continue Reading →
On April 30, 2013, Fitapelli & Schaffer filed a class and collective action lawsuit against the owners and operators of Restaurant Riki, Box Snack Riki, and Riki Yakiniku Izakaya (collectively referred to as the “Riki Restaurants”), for failing to pay minimum wages, overtime wages, spread of hours pay, and for misappropriating customer tips intended for their servers. According to the lawsuit, the Riki Restaurants have violated numerous provisions of the ...
Continue Reading →Counsel for Defendants asked the Court to compel removal of Plaintiffs’ website (www.TGIFridayslawsuit.com) alleging the website contained false and misleading information and infringed on T.G.I. Friday’s trademark. Plaintiffs argued that the website was proper attorney advertising and would not infringe on Friday’s trademarks because the public would not be confused regarding who controlled the website. The website contains disclaimers specifically stating that, “This website is not affiliated or endorsed by TGI Fridays or tgifridays.com. This website provides information regarding a ...
Continue Reading →Click Here to View the Consent
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.
Continue Reading →
Click Here to Read the Decision
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 ...
Continue Reading →Click Here to View the Complaint
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 ...
Continue Reading →Click Here to Read the Lawsuit
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 →Click Here to View the Complaint
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 →