Bohemian Club Sued in CA Wage and Hour Class Action

Two California valets employed by the Bohemian Club have filed a wage and hour class action lawsuit, claiming they and other valets have been denied overtime pay and meal breaks or rest periods.

Plaintiffs Gabriel Martin and Jacob Horvat filed this California wage and hour class action lawsuit alleging they work 18 hour-days and are expected to be on-call 24 hours a day, without overtime pay compensation and are allegedly denied rest periods and meal breaks during Bohemian Club’s summer meetings.

Background on Bohemian Club

The Bohemian Club is a private, men-only institution founded just north of the San Francisco area in 1872 by local journalists and artists. Over the years that the club has been in business, it expanded to include annual meetings and parties elite individuals, including politicians, industry leaders, and other popular and power figures.

Since 1878, just a few years after its establishment, the Bohemian Club began holding summer gatherings in a wooded area known as the Bohemian Grove. This 2,700 acre retreat located in Monte Rio features numerous Bohemian Club events each year, the most of exciting of these taking place in early July, functioning like a two-week summer camp.

Valet’s Allege CA Wage and Hour Violations

As Bohemian Club employees, Martin and Horvat claim they have worked several summers as valets for these summer camp events. According to their California overtime pay class action lawsuit, filed in early July of this year, the plaintiffs allege:

“Camp valets’ primary duty is to serve the needs of Camp participants, primarily through manual labor. Camp valets job duties include clean-up, set-up, personal service work, including moving wine cases, chairs, tables, beer kegs, firewood and luggage; building fires; cooking meals; stocking refrigerators; delivering newspapers; making coffee; serving cocktails; washing dishes; scrubbing floors; doing laundry; making beds, and cleaning showers and campgrounds.”

Martin and Horvat also claim that Bohemian Club managers misclassified the valets as independent contractors and furthermore attempted to have the two plaintiffs sign wage and hour claims releases with an incentive payment of $250 to $1,000. However, both Martin and Horvat refused the payment and did not consent to sign the wage and hour waivers.

This is not the first time that the Bohemian Club has had to deal with alleged California labor code violations. Last year, the same attorney representing Martin and Horvat’s helped another valet file a lawsuit against the secretive gentleman’s club, which ended in a settlement for the plaintiff.

According to the Bohemian Club wage and hour class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs are seeking class certification, injunction, damages, and penalties against the club’s summer camps.

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