Brininger v. Fred A. Cook, Jr., Inc., and Brian F. Cook, individually Docket No.: 18-cv-4579

New Collective Action filed in the Southern District of New York
Brininger v. Fred A. Cook, Jr., Inc., and Brian F. Cook, individually  Docket No.: 18-cv-4579

On May 23, 2018, Plaintiff Mr. Brininger, on behalf of himself and all others similarly-situated, filed a civil action lawsuit in United States District Court – Southern District of New York against Fred A. Cook, Jr., Inc., and Brian F. Cook, individually. The complaint alleges as follows:

Plaintiff commenced his employment with Defendants – a company that provides sanitary sewer, data collection, septic, railroad, and water plant services, and its chief executive officer and day-to-day overseer –in July 2016 and he remains employed to date. As a vactor operator/foreman and laborer, Plaintiff Brininger’s primary duties consist of traveling to Defendants’ clients’ locations and operating the vactor vacuum truck, which excavates products and waste from sewers and catch basins, and cleaning the clients’ catch basins, pipes, and sewers. Mr. Brininger’s schedule is not fixed; he works five days a week, arriving at Defendants’ location anytime between 5:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., and returning to Defendant’s location anytime between 3:00pm and 7:00pm, depending on the amount of the day’s work and traffic. Although Defendants require Plaintiff to travel to and from certain work sites, Defendants failed and continue to fail to pay Plaintiff at any rate of pay for up to three hours of time per workday that Plaintiff spends traveling, for a total of up to fifteen hours per week, all of which are hours that he works in excess of forty in a week. Thus, Plaintiff is not paid his overtime compensation for those hours as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the New York Labor Law (“NYLL”), and the New York Comp. Codes, Rules, and Regulations require. Additionally, Defendants failed and continue to fail to provide Plaintiff with accurate wage statements on each payday as the NYLL requires. Moreover, after Mr. Brininger complained to Defendant Cook about Defendants’ failure to properly pay him overtime wages, Defendants retaliated by suspending Plaintiff without pay from on or about August 18, 2017 until on or about September 13, 2017. Accordingly, on behalf of himself only, Plaintiff brings retaliation claims under the FLSA and the NYLL.

If any individual is or has previously been an employee for the Defendants named in the lawsuit and/or has information that may be relevant to this case, please contact New York Employment Lawyers Borrelli & Associates, P.L.L.C. as soon as possible through our website or by phone: (516) 248–5550, (516) ABOGADO, or (212) 679–5000.