Judge grants Conditional Certification of Collective Action in the United States District Court Eastern District of New York
Plaintiff, Castro on behalf of himself, individually, and on behalf of all others similarly-situated, filed a collective action lawsuit in the United States District Court District Eastern District of New York against Taier New York Inc., and Weiye Li a/k/a Guo Xiang Li, and Hanson Wong a/k/a Yudi Wang, alleging violations of the tip pooling and tip retention provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the tip pooling and tip retention provisions of the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”), and the New York Codes Rules and Regulations (“NYCRR”), including the failure of Defendants to compensate Plaintiff for overtime wages. The claims of the case are as follows:
- Plaintiffs worked for Defendants – – a New York corporation that operates a Szechuan restaurant in Queens, New York, and its day-to-day overseers – – as a non-managerial front-of-the-house employee from May 7, 2025, until August 20, 2025.
- Specifically, Defendants required Plaintiff to participate in an unlawful tip sharing arrangement in which Defendants kept portions of tips intended for Plaintiff, and thus Defendants failed to pay Plaintiff the full amount of tips owed to Plaintiff each workweek.
- Moreover, based on that impermissible tip sharing arrangement, and further due to Defendants’ failure to provide Plaintiff with written notice of their intention to do so at the time of his hire, Defendants were not permitted to claim a tip credit against Plaintiff’s wages. Yet Defendants did so anyway, and as a result, Defendants paid Plaintiff at what they believed to be the tipped minimum wage rate, which was obviously below the non-tipped minimum wage rate that New York law requires for all hours that Plaintiff work.
- Additionally, even if they were permitted to claim a tip credit, the hourly rate at which Defendants paid Plaintiff was less the tipped minimum hourly wage rate that New York law required in 2025. All of this was in violation of the NYLL and the NYCRR.
- Furthermore, throughout his employment, for those days when Plaintiff’s shift exceeded ten hours from beginning to end and/or included a split shift, Defendants did not compensate Plaintiff with an additional one hour’s pay at the minimum wage rate in violation of the spread-of-hours provisions of the NYLL and the NYCRR.
- Finally, Defendants violated the NYLL by failing to furnish Plaintiff with any wage notice at the time of his hire, let alone an accurate notice, or with an accurate wage statement on each payday.
- Defendants paid and treated all their non-managerial front-of-the-house employees in the same manner.
Defendant violated Plaintiffs’ rights guaranteed to them by the overtime provisions of the FLSA, the NYLL and the NYCRR. Additionally, Defendants violated the NYLL by failing to provide Plaintiffs with any wage notice upon hire or throughout the relevant period; and provide Plaintiffs with an accurate wage statement on each payday.
Certification of Collective Action
In this case, pursuant to the request of the Plaintiffs, the Judge reviewed claims that the Plaintiffs brought forward alleging that there are additional workers in the same “class” (performing the same or similar duties) whose rights have been violated. On October 6, 2026, the Court ordered the approval of a collective action allowing the case to proceed as a collective action enabling any current and former employees who were not paid properly to join the lawsuit and seek redress for Defendants’ failure to compensate them in accordance with the law.
If you or a person you know worked for the Defendants named in the lawsuit during the time period of March 2020 – present or has information that may be relevant to this case, contact Borrelli & Associates, P.L.L.C. as soon as possible through one of our websites, www.employmentlawyernewyork.com, www.516abogado.com or any of our phone numbers: (516) 248-5550, (516) ABOGADO, and (212) 679-5000.
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