Barnes & Noble Agrees to Pay $910K to Settle Cafe Workers’ Lawsuit

Bookseller Barnes & Noble has agreed to pay $910,000 to settle an overtime lawsuit with former cafe workers that has gone on for more than four years.

In a letter to New York Judge Katharine H. Parker Thursday, the former employees said Barnes & Noble had agreed to pay plaintiffs $210,000, with the rest — $700,000 — going to cover the four-and-a-half years’ worth of lawyers fees.

The initial lawsuit was filed by Chicago’s Kelly Brown in Sept. 2016, alleging during her time as manager at a Barnes & Noble cafe in the windy city, she was misclassified as a salaried employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and denied overtime pay. 

Brown said she did the same work as a non salaried employee but would work 48 to 52 hour weeks without overtime pay. 

In November 2016, former employee Tiffany Stewart was added to the lawsuit, and the pair included claims under New York labor law, Law360 reported.

The lawsuit was never certified as a class action, but it went into negotiations and eventually reached the agreed settlement proposed on Thursday.

In the letter, lawyers for the plaintiffs said the settlement was “very fair and reasonable” and “ends four years of contested litigation.” 

“[Without] settlement, it is likely that the parties would have had to litigate these claims for at least another year. With 36 named plaintiffs and opt-In Plaintiffs, the trial would be a large and costly undertaking for both sides.”

Each worker will likely see an average of $5,555, according to the letter, and Brown and Stewart will get $10,000.

Last year, Barnes & Noble was also one of the publishers and retailers hit with an antitrust lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to force college and graduate students to use their digital coursework materials instead of shopping elsewhere.

Are you a current or previous worker at Barnes & Noble? Let us know in the comments below.

The plaintiffs are represented by Gregg Shavitz, Michael J. Palitz and Camar Jones of Shavitz Law Group PA and Marc S. Hepworth, Charles Gershbaum, David A. Roth and Rebecca S. Predovan of Hepworth Gershbaum & Roth PLLC.

The Barnes & Noble Cafe Worker Overtime Settlement is Kelly Brown et al. v. Barnes & Noble Inc., Case No. 1:16-cv-07333, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

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