Wage and Hour Violations Alleged Against Cooking Light

A plaintiff has lodged wage and hour violations against employer Cooking Light in a recent lawsuit over their tip sharing policy. The wage and hour violations lawsuit argues that the company violated their employee’s rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay overtime to employees as well as failing to pay the minimum wage.

Wage and Hour Violations Broke Laws According to Plaintiff

Cooking Light is the company doing business as The Garden Grill in Brooklyn, New York. The wage and hour violations suit says that the plaintiff was employed in several roles while working for the defendant. She first worked as a dishwasher, food server, and cleaner at the grill between November 2013 and November 2015.

She later worked as a delivery person between September 2017 and December 2017. The wage and hour violations complaint says that the majority of income earned by the plaintiff while working in these roles was generated from tips.

At the conclusion of each day, the plaintiff, in addition to other food servers, had to pay out fees from their tips to the defendant. The wage and hour violations suit says that the determination of the amount of tips given to each food server was at the whole discretion of the defendants.

The plaintiff also argues that it was hard to track what was earned and when, because the defendants did not maintain, establish, or preserve daily logs about the tips earned by shift or by employee. With tips coming in cash and credit card form, the servers were not entirely sure of their earnings, according to the suit.

Furthermore, the wage and hour violations lawsuit says that the defendant did not keep any records about the types of employees, wait staff, delivery driver, dish washers, or cooks, who would receive tips at the conclusion of each day or the share of tips that would be distributed to each worker based on their role.

The wage and hour violations lawsuit also alleges that that no breakdown of tips and wages was provided on the wage statements given to the plaintiff or other employees.

According to the plaintiff, the employers were aware that this behavior was in violation of state and federal employment laws. Both federal and state regulations prohibit the reduction of minimum wage through the application of tip allowance. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants misappropriated parts of the tips due to the plaintiffs under these laws.

The lawsuit also says that the defendants failed to notify her and others about the tip credits and the portion of her wages from tips in direct violation of the law.

The plaintiff also alleges that she worked in excess of 50 hours per week for the defendant, Further, she says she was not given the right overtime pay for the hours she put in. She says she was never properly compensated at time and a half for those hours worked above 40 in a week.



If you or someone you know believes you have a legal claim based on wage and hour violations, you need to consult with the lawyers at Bradley/Grombacher-fill out the form on this page to get more information.

The wage and hour violations suit is Gitlitz v. Cooking Light Inc, Case No. 1:18-cv-00101-JBW-SJB, filed in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York.

Note: Bradley/Grombacher is not representing the plaintiff in this lawsuit.