Curaleaf Holdings Withheld Tips Class Action Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: Morgan Heller filed a class action lawsuit against Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.
- Why: Heller claims store managers at Curaleaf Holdings locations in Chicago confiscated all the day’s tips for themselves.
- Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in Illinois federal court.
Employees at Curaleaf cannabis dispensary locations in Chicago, Illinois, were unlawfully deprived of their tips, a new class action lawsuit alleges.
Plaintiff Morgan Heller claims store managers at the Curaleaf she worked at in Northbrook violated the law by confiscating all of the tips earned during a shift, which she says they kept for themselves.
Heller claims that, in addition to her location, employees she spoke with from a Curaleaf store in Melrose Park had a similar problem with managers allegedly confiscating all of the day’s tips.
Store managers at the Northbrook Curaleaf location initially did not allow employees to accept customer tips, Heller says; however, she claims the policy was changed in October 2020, at which time a tip jar was placed at the front of the store.
The understanding among employees was that the tips would be fairly divided between those that worked in the front assisting customers and those who worked in the back of the store, according to the class action lawsuit.
Curaleaf Store Managers Confiscated Tips Earned By Employees
Heller claims that, instead, the tips from each day were confiscated by management and not distributed to the employees at all.
“Heller was never permitted to keep any cash tips she received from customers, and no tips were ever distributed by management to her or any other hourly employees,” the class action lawsuit states.
The total amount of tips taken by management would be in the range of $350 and $600 each day, according to the class action lawsuit, which calculated that, between October 2020 and October 2021, managers confiscated approximately $126,000 in tips.
Heller says she has since learned that Curaleaf’s managers finally stopped confiscating all the tips in January, and now provide them to their hourly employees, whom she says receive approximately $60 to $100 in tips each week.
Heller claims Curaleaf is in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act. She is demanding a jury trial and requesting statutory damages for herself and all class members.
Heller wants to represent a class of non-exempt Curaleaf employees who worked at Chicago locations and who were not fully compensated for all the hours that they worked, due to the alleged tip theft.
A separate class action lawsuit was filed against Curaleaf in January over allegations the company sold products falsely marketed as being CBD only that, in reality, contained THC and caused customers to get sick.
Has your employer withheld tips from your pay? Let us know in the comments!
The plaintiff is represented by Matthew Fletcher and Max Barack of Garfinkel Group, LLC.
The Curaleaf Holdings Withheld Tips Class Action Lawsuit is Heller v. Curaleaf Holdings, Inc., Case No. 1:22-cv-01617, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
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