​​Urban Outfitters Underpays Its Restaurant Workers, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges

Urban Outfitters Class Action Lawsuit Overview: 

• Who: Urban Outfitters is facing a class action lawsuit alleging that the company underpays its restaurant workers.
• Why: A Connecticut server alleges that Urban Outfitters paid below minimum wage for non-service work that wasn’t eligible for tips and then illegally claimed a tip credit for those hours, violating state wage laws.
• Where: The class action is pending in a Connecticut superior court.

Urban Outfitters underpays its servers and bartenders at its home and garden restaurants, and claims a tip credit for work that is ineligible to be tipped, a new class action lawsuit alleges.

Although the fashion giant isn’t well-known in the restaurant world, it owns a chain of home and garden centers with restaurants on-site called Terrain. The restaurants operate in Philadelphia and Connecticut.

Lead plaintiff Bridget Burke, who is a server at the Westport location alleges in the class action that Urban Outfitters Inc regularly assigned non-service work, known as sidework, to its Connecticut employees, but did not segregate that time from serving work and pay it at the full minimum wage, violating state wage laws.

She says in the claim that Urban Outfitters also failed to record the amount claimed as credit or get the required signed weekly tip statements. As a result, she adds, the employees should have been paid the full $10.10 minimum wage for all of their service hours, rather than $6.38 per hour for servers and $8.23 for bartenders.

“By this illegal practice, Defendant underpaid Plaintiff and the class of Connecticut service employees by hundreds of thousands of dollars during the period of the claim,” states the class action.

Burke wants to represent all current and former servers at Terrain’s Westport location, where she worked from 2018 until 2020. 

Urban Outfitters Restaurant Workers Owed Back Pay, Claims Class Action

She alleges that the servers were paid a tipped wage rate to do general cleaning and stocking duties such as stocking all paper cups and straws, condiments, to-go items, restocking and polishing all silverware, cleaning coffee machines, and more, for hours during a shift.

In order to pay that rate, restaurants in the state must ensure servers are limiting their work to service and closely related duties; record the amount of tip credit claimed as a separate item in the wage record on a weekly basis; and obtain signed weekly tip statements confirming that they have received sufficient tips to cover the tip credit, the claim explains.

If restaurants failed to obey any one of these rules, as Burke alleges Urban Outfitters did, then they were not entitled to take the tip credit and instead were required to pay the full minimum wage to their servers for their entire shifts.

She claims the fashion giant now owes the servers back pay, interest, penalty damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs. She is suing for violations to Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Act.

In a March class action lawsuit, Urban Outfitters was also accused of knowingly selling a hazardous journal that contains toxic chemicals that can cause cancer and reproductive issues. 

Have you ever visited one of Urban Outfitters’ Terrain restaurants? Tell us your experience in the comments below!

Burke is represented by Michael T. Petela of Hayber, McKenna & Dinsmore, LLC.

The Urban Outfitters Wage Class Action Lawsuit is Burke v. Urban Outfitters, Inc., Case No. 3:21-cv-01416 in the State Of Connecticut Superior Court.

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