Pastry Chef Files Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit

A Dallas pastry chef recently filed an unpaid overtime lawsuit against her employers, Aphelia Restaurant Group, after allegedly being denied overtime pay.

According to the unpaid overtime lawsuit, the plaintiff, Delania T., worked as a pastry chef making desserts for several restaurants owned by Aphelia Restaurant Group. Aphelia owns a number of restaurants in the Dallas area, including Oak, Quill, El Bolero, and Pakpao. The majority of Delania’s work was at Oak.

The unpaid overtime lawsuit alleges that Delania worked over forty hours per week on a consistent basis, averaging between 75 and 80 hours per week. Despite this constant overtime work, Delania was never compensated for her overtime hours, the wage and hour lawsuit claims.

However, she was not exempt from overtime pay, she claims, for a number of reasons: she did not supervise employees, hire or fire employees, discipline employees or have a specialized four-year culinary arts degree. Instead, Delania was “simply told what dishes and/or desserts to make, and she dutifully carried out those orders.” Without these factors, she claims, she should be a non-exempt employee, and thus eligible for overtime pay.

Despite her not being exempt from overtime pay, her employer did not track or record the overtime hours she worked, and she was not paid overtime wages for the hours she worked over the forty-hour mark.

Delania filed her unpaid overtime lawsuit due to this failure to pay overtime wages, alleging that as a non-exempt employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act, she is entitled to such payments. The lawsuit also notes her employer’s failure to keep accurate pay records.

Wage and Hour Regulations

There are a series of both federal and state wage and hour laws put in place to protect workers and ensure they are treated fairly. However, many workers across the country do not know the protections that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) offers, which can lead to employers taking advantage of them, in some cases requiring unpaid overtime work despite the illegality of doing so.

Some workers may find themselves unable to file wage and hour complaints like this unpaid overtime lawsuit because they are not aware of FLSA rules. Other workers may be afraid that their employers will retaliate or even fire them if they speak up about these kinds of FLSA violations.

However, to protect workers who help to enforce FLSA rules, laws also exist to protect workers from retaliation based on wage and hour complaints.

Filing an Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit

If you have worked for an employer like Aphelia Restaurant Group that may have failed to follow the Fair Labor Standards Act or state labor laws, such as unpaid overtime requirements, you may be able to either join a wage and hour class action lawsuit or file an unpaid overtime lawsuit of your own.

The Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-01465-N, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.

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