Top NY Restaurants Targeted in Suits Filed by Two Law Firms
Federal law allows wait staff and others who receive tips to be paid less than minimum wage—$4.65 an hour to be specific—as long as they can retain the gratuities they earn.
Alleged violations of that law are among the workplace wrongs targeted in suits being filed by a handful of lawyers targeting New York’s “hottest chefs and restaurateurs,” the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports. Among the defendants are Masaharu Morimoto of “Iron Chef” fame and three upscale Italian restaurants in Manhattan.
Many of the suits claim employees are required to share their tips. Other claimed violations include a requirement that wait staff buy and launder their jackets and a failure to pay full gratuities charged to parties of 12 or more.
Two law firms filing many of the suits are Outten & Golden and Joseph, Herzfeld, Hester & Kirschenbaum. Their take is usually about one-third of the settlement.
The suits are generating some criticism, the story says. “Some in the industry claim that a number of the suits are frivolous,” the newspaper reports, “and appear to be generated by a handful of attorneys intent on generating headlines by targeting big names.”
Supporters, however, say the suits highlight long-time labor violations in the restaurant industry. Lawyer Maimon Kirschenbaum of the Joseph Herzfeld law firm echoed that sentiment. “We don’t chase people, people chase us,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “They’re being wronged, they’re being taken advantage of by big corporations with a lot of power.”
