Sarah Mirando  |  March 8, 2012

Category: Labor & Employment

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Applebee’s Fails to Decertify Wage Class Action Lawsuit

By Mike Holter

 

Applebee's A federal judge has denied a motion by an Applebee’s franchise to decertify a class action lawsuit alleging the chain did not pay its servers and bartenders minimum wage.
 
U.S. District Judge Geraldine Brown certified a class in March 2010 consisting of servers and bartenders employed by AppleIllinois, LLC, which operates 34 Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill restaurants in Illinois. The workers claimed that even though the franchise pays them a reduced salary that accounts for tips, it regularly assigns them to perform non-tipped work like dishwashing, cleaning and kitchen operations. As a result, they were sometimes paid less than minimum wage.
 
The Applebee’s workers also claim in the class action lawsuit that they had to contribute 2.5 percent of sales per shift to a tip pool, which often exceeded 15 percent of the total tips they actually received. This tip-pool actually went toward cash-register shortfalls and other purposes, they claim, and was not divided amongst them.
 
AppleIllinois moved to decertify a class of “dual-job” employees in the wake of Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that 1.5 million women “lacked sufficient commonality” to collectively pursue discrimination claims against Wal-Mart.
 
The dual-job servers worked as tipped employees who also performed duties unrelated to their tipped occupation.
 
Judge Brown ruled last week, however, that Wal-Mart v. Dukes did not change her original decision because the servers did not allege employment discrimination based on race or sex, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
 
Brown also rejected AppleIllinois’ argument that assessment of damages could not be proved on a class-wide basis, ruling that the “undisputed evidence” showed that all financial and sales records for AppleIllinois restaurants were maintained in a uniform electronic recordkeeping POS system.
 
“Accordingly, there is a centralized source of information about the time and wage records for the class members,” she wrote. 
 
“In sum, the Plaintiffs here have submitted substantial evidence of exactly what the Supreme Court found to be missing in Wal-Mart: standardized conduct that could render AppleIllinois liable to the class members for the claims alleged. Plaintiffs have submitted proof that AppleIllinois systematically used employees compensated at the tip credit wage rate to perform untipped work.”

 

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Updated March 8th, 2012

 

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