On September 26, 2011, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision in a unpaid wages lawsuit against restaurants owned by Smith & Wollensky, a well-known brand of steakhouses.\u00a0 The Court ruled that Plaintiffs are able to bring a simultaneous Collective Action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and class action pursuant to the New York Labor Law (NYLL) in the same case.\u00a0 The Court ruled that under Federal Law and New York law, the violations are similar and facts overlap.\u00a0 Also, just because someone does not affirmatively opt-in to the FLSA case, does not mean that same person cannot share in the opt-out portion of the case.\u00a0 The Court noted that many employees do not opt-in because they are afraid of retaliation.\u00a0 The facts of the case involved non-tip eligible employees, such as managers, silver polishers and coffee preparers being included in the tip-pool.\u00a0 These violations are common in restaurants in New York City.<\/p>\n
In New York, waiters cannot be forced to share tips with any member of management, or anyone who is not a busboy or similar employee.\u00a0 This includes kitchen workers, dishwashers and expediters.\u00a0 Unfortunately, many restaurants include these non-tip eligible employees in tip pools, in order to avoid paying them less wages.\u00a0 The unpaid wage lawyers of Fitapelli & Schaffer can assist employees who believe they have been subjected to similar illegal pay practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On September 26, 2011, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a landmark decision in a unpaid wages lawsuit against restaurants owned by Smith & Wollensky, a well-known brand of steakhouses.\u00a0 The Court ruled that Plaintiffs are able to bring a simultaneous Collective Action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and class action pursuant to the New York Labor Law (NYLL) in the same case.\u00a0 The Court ruled that under Federal Law and New York law, the violations are …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-employment-law"],"yoast_head":"\n