Rosa Mexicano Reaches $3.6M Settlement with Servers for Tip Violations

Rosa Mexicano has agreed to pay $3.6 million to settle a nationwide class action lawsuit alleging that the upscale Mexican restaurant chain failed to pay its waitstaff minimum and overtime wages and misappropriated tips.  The settlement agreement covers an estimated 3,500 employees at twelve locations in New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Boston, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Minneapolis. The restaurant workers filed the lawsuit suit in New York federal court in July of 2016, arguing Rosa Mexicano claimed an invalid tip credit and improperly paid their waitstaff at a tipped minimum wage instead of the full minimum wage. The waitstaff claims in their lawsuit that Rosa Mexicano did not inform them they would be paid at tipped minimum wage and misappropriated their tips, violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”). Tips were shared with “floaters”, who conducted miscellaneous tasks around the restaurant without ever having customer contact. According to the lawsuit, these “floaters” were not entitled to sharing in a tip pool, invalidating Rosa Mexicano’s tip credit.  The wage theft lawsuit also claimed that Rosa Mexicano did not pay waitstaff for hours worked over forty per week. Some former servers claimed to work up to 50 hours per week without receiving overtime pay. The lawsuit also alleges that waitresses, waiters, bussers, and bartenders did not receive “call-in pay” required under NYLL, when they reported for work only to be sent home before being able to work three hours. One of the former workers claims this happened on 146 shifts.  For these violations, the employees sought to recover unpaid minimum wages, unpaid overtime wages, unpaid “call-in pay”, liquidated damages and attorneys’ fees. The attorneys for the restaurant workers are Fitapelli & Schaffer, a New York law firm. The settlement is subject to approval by United States Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis.