Case Information

This case was filed by a former waitress for Russo’s claiming that Russo’s violated federal wage and tipping laws. The lawsuit seeks recovery of wages on behalf of all current and former servers who worked at Russo’s since January of 2016. The lawsuit claims Russo’s violated federal wage laws when Russo’s retained a portion of its server’s tips and failed to provide legally required notices to tipped employees. For instance, the lawsuit claims that Russo’s violated federal law when it deducted “linen fees” from servers’ paychecks.

The lawsuit alleges that Russo’s illegal conduct prevents it from paying servers the sub-minimum “server wage” and instead must pay the full minimum wage for each hour worked for each of the affected servers. [i.e. $5.12 is the difference between the server wage ($2.13) and full minimum wage ($7.25)]

Therefore, the lawsuit requests recovery of wages at $5.12 per hour for each hour worked in weeks when a violation occurred plus “liquidated damages” in an equal amount of the unpaid wages as provided for under federal law.  The lawsuit also requests repayment of all tips that were improperly retained plus an equal amount as liquidated damages. Finally, the lawsuit seeks repayment of the servers’ attorneys’ fees and costs.

Status Updates

January 23, 2019 – Lawsuit filed