Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the weeks between Friday, September 6, and Friday, September 13
Missouri Million Dollar Thief
The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit in federal court against a Jefferson City buffet restaurant and its owner, after investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found servers worked for tips only and cooks were paid a set cash salary regardless of how many hours they worked, leading to violations of minimum wage or overtime regulations.
Filed on September 17, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Central Division against Dragon Kitchen of Jefferson City and its owner Danny Cheng, the lawsuit seeks $1,871,840 – representing $935,920 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages ‒ for the 26 affected workers. The department also assessed a civil money penalty of $35,672 for willful violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The action comes after the department’s Wage and Hour Division found, from at least Dec. 21, 2021, through July 31, 2024, the employer violated federal regulations by doing the following:
- Paying cooks and other back-of-the-house employees straight-time pay rates when overtime wages should have been paid.
- Failing to pay servers and other front-of-the-house employees the required minimum wage and overtime pay. Paying servers only the tips they received.
- Not maintaining complete and accurate time records, as required.
“Allowing servers to work for tips only and pay a set cash wage to cooks blatantly violates federal wage law. All too often, our food service industry investigations find employers violating federal overtime, minimum wage and recordkeeping regulations. At the same time, workers are unaware of their rights and afraid to question their paychecks’ accuracy,” said Wage and Hour District Director Noah Lee in St. Louis, Missouri. “The Department of Labor will continue to hold employers accountable for verifying that they are paying workers as the law requires and make sure every worker is paid what they rightfully earned.”
In addition to paying back wages, damages and penalties, the lawsuit seeks to forbid Dragon Kitchen and Cheng from future FLSA violations and requires them to provide employees information on their federal wage protections in languages employees’ request.
In fiscal year 2023, the Wage and Hour Division recovered more than $29 million in back wages for food service industry workers nationwide.
Louisiana Thieves
Renowned for its food and restaurant options, New Orleans’ economy depends on the city’s service workers, including 359 people employed by five restaurants that, U.S. Department of Labor investigators found, made illegal wage deductions and paid them less than minimum wage.
The department’s Wage and Hour Division determined Bobby Hebert’s Cajun Cannon, the Hideout Bar, Mambo’s, Oceana Grill, and the Olde NOLA Cookery deducted the cost of uniforms, order errors, liquor shortages, customer walk-outs and customer credit card disputes from employees’ wages in violation of federal regulations.
The investigation recovered $109,154, including $54,577 in back wages and an equal amount in damages – for the tipped servers and bartenders. The investigations are part of an ongoing enforcement initiative by the division to identify violations in the restaurant industry and recover back wages. If warranted, the division will recover damages and assess civil money penalties.
“Many restaurant and hospitality workers depend on their wages and tips to support their families,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Troy Mouton in New Orleans. “Employers who make deductions to cover business expenses often reduce wages paid to the workers below the federal minimum wage, causing workers financial hardship and creating costly consequences for employers.”
The restaurants are owned and operated by a father and son and registered under the following company names: Cajun Conti LLC, Cajun Bourbon LLC, Cajun House LLC, Cajun Vets LLC and Cajun 417 LLC.
Texas Thieves
The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $227,834 in back wages from the owner and operator of a Happy Lamb Hot Pot franchise in Grand Prairie that denied 47 restaurant workers required minimum and overtime wages and illegally allowed a manager to keep a portion of servers’ tips.
The recovery follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division of Xfy Time Square LLC that found the employer violated federal regulations when it did the following:
- Paid the affected workers for scheduled hours but did not calculate actual hours worked, which led to overtime and, in some cases, minimum wage violations.
- Incorrectly paid the restaurant’s cooks straight-time rates for overtime hours worked.
- Allowed the general manager to include himself in the front-of-house workers’ tip pool illegally.
“Far too often, our investigators find restaurant industry workers falling victim to wage theft,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Jesus A. Valdez in Dallas. “Employers must pay workers all of their rightful wages, including overtime when required and tips earned for serving customers. The outcome in this case should remind all employers that wage violations can have very costly consequences.”
The Happy Lamb Hot Pot investigation in Grand Prairie is part of the division’s ongoing enforcement initiative to identify wage violations in the restaurant industry and recover back wages. The division will also recover damages and assess civil money penalties if warranted.
Georgia Discriminators
Osmose Utilities Services, Inc., a provider of services and products to utility companies to support their infrastructures, violated federal law when it denied an employee an accommodation for her disability and then fired her, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit filed today.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, a one call locator who had suffered a head injury and stroke requested to work fully remote from home as an accommodation. In-person attendance was not an essential function of the position and Osmose Utilities had previously allowed the employee to work remotely while its office was relocated in 2019. However, Osmose Utilities denied the employee’s request to work remotely as an accommodation for her medical condition.
Alternatively, the employee requested to work remotely for two to three days per week. However, Osmose Utilities denied the employee’s alternative request. Although the employer granted the employee leave to attend medical appointments, management complained about the employee leaving work to go to medical appointments and pressured her to end her appointments prematurely. Six weeks after her first accommodation request, the employee was fired without any warning.
Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits disability discrimination and retaliation against an employee with a disability. The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Osmose Utilities Services, Inc., Case No. 1:24-CV-04140-MLB-JKL) in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process. The EEOC is seeking back pay, compensatory damages, and punitive damages for the employee, as well as injunctive relief to prevent future discrimination.
“This case highlights the importance of considering remote work as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities,” said Marcus G. Keegan, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Atlanta District Office. “Employees have the right to request reasonable accommodations under the ADA and should not be treated adversely when they do so.”
Darrell Graham, district director of the EEOC’s Atlanta District Office, said, “Employers must understand that disability discrimination is both illegal and unacceptable, and we will vigorously pursue justice on behalf of workers who are denied their rights to reasonable accommodations and unlawfully terminated because of a disability.”