On November 3, 2015, The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Plaintiffs’ Motion for a 45 day extension of the deadline for potential plaintiffs to opt-in to the lawsuit against Carlson’s Restaurant \u00a0Inc. and TGI Friday’s Inc. (collectively, “TGI Friday’s”). The lawsuit alleges that TGI Friday’s failed to pay its servers, bussers, runners, bartenders, barbacks, hosts and other tipped food service workers (“Tipped Employees”) proper minimum wage, overtime pay, spread-of-hours pay, and misappropriated tips, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”).<\/p>\n
The Court granted Plaintiffs’ request for an extension of time for notice to be sent because Plaintiffs contended, and the Court agreed, that an extension would be fair to allow accurate and timely notice to potential collective members. This was due to the fact that, as of October, 2015, less than 7% of the potential collective had joined the case, and over 7,000 mailings to potential collective members were returned as undeliverable. \u00a0The court noted that they have broad discretion to oversee the notice process. Such discretion must be exercised with the understanding that the FLSA should be interpreted “liberally” and its protections afforded “exceptionally broad coverage.” Cheeks v. Freeport Pancake House, Inc.<\/em>, 796 F.3d 199, 206 (2d Cir. 2015) (citing Chao v. Gotham Registry, Inc.<\/em>, 514 F.3d 280, 285 (2d Cir. 2008)). Additionally, the Court held that Plaintiffs are permitted to mail and e-mail reminder notices to potential members.<\/p>\n Fitapelli & Schaffer LLP is seeking to represent Tipped Employees who work or have worked at TGI Friday’s. Any Tipped Employee who works or has worked at TGI Friday’s in the last three years may have a wage claim. Please contact the employment lawyers at Fitapelli & Schaffer, LLP at (212) 300-0375, to see if you are eligible to join the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On November 3, 2015, The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Plaintiffs’ Motion for a 45 day extension of the deadline for potential plaintiffs to opt-in to the lawsuit against Carlson’s Restaurant \u00a0Inc. and TGI Friday’s Inc. (collectively, “TGI Friday’s”). The lawsuit alleges that TGI Friday’s failed to pay its servers, bussers, runners, bartenders, barbacks, hosts and other tipped food service workers (“Tipped Employees”) proper minimum wage, overtime pay, spread-of-hours pay, and misappropriated tips, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23,1,22,24,27,26,34,29,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-action","category-employment-law","category-flsa-2","category-minimum-wage-2","category-ny-labor-law","category-tips","category-unpaid-wages-2","category-waiter","category-waitress"],"yoast_head":"\n