Yelp Reviewers File Class Action Lawsuit Seeking Employment Wages

By Dominic Rivera | November 4, 2013

Category: Legal News

By Dominic Rivers

Reviewers sue Yelp A proposed class action lawsuit seeking employment benefits and wages was filed by a group of reviewers against Yelp, Inc. The group is led by Dr. Allen Panzer, who has written reviews for Yelp since November 2007.

Yelp is a popular website, averaging 108 million visitors per month. Its users have posted over 42 million reviews. The company earns its income by selling advertising on its site, “the content of which is created free-of-wages by hordes of solicited posters, in violation of the Federal Labor Standard Act (FLSA),” the lawsuit alleges.

The complaint under Section 216(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is based on “Defendant’s policies and practices of refusing to pay wages to its workers by designating them variously as “reviewers” or “Yelpers” or “independent contractors” or “interns” or “volunteers” or “Contributors” even though they are performing vital work that inures to the benefit of Yelp’s various business enterprises.”

“A vast majority of the ratings, reviews and photos posted on Defendant Yelp’s websites are created and supplied by a large and ever-growing stable of non-wage-page writers. This lawsuit seeks to recover unpaid compensation for Plaintiffs and other similarly situated workers who have been employed by Defendant in the United States,” the lawsuit states.

In stating their case, the plaintiffs said that the defendant could not exist without its domination and control over non-wage writers. They quoted one co-founder of Yelp who said, “The site wasn’t set up to serve businesses, it was meant to serve the consumer. Without the community of reviewers, there is no Yelp.”

Because of this, the lawsuit states that the “defendant unlawfully misclassified this plaintiff and the members of the Class as non-wage-paid employees, failed to pay them a minimum wage and overtime payments, and otherwise violated their legal rights as set forth herein.”

The plaintiffs are seeking for unpaid wages, reimbursement of expenditures and liquidated statutory damages as permitted by law, attorney’s fees and other reliefs which the court may deem fair.

The lawsuit is also asking that a “notice be issued to all similarly situated persons that the the past or present writers and reviewers be given the opportunity to join in this lawsuit as party plaintiffs.”