Firm Secures Judgment in the amount of $150,000.00 – Wage & Hour Violations

May 2024

Valdez et al. v. Michpat & Fam, LLC d/b/a Dairy Queen Grill & Chill Restaurant, and Patricia Nappo, a/k/a Patricia Demint, indvidually., et al. Docket No: 20-cv-2570

Firm Secures Judgment in the amount of $150,000.00 – Wage & Hour Violations – Firm represented a managing member/general manager against her former employers Michpat & Fam LLC, d/b/a Dairy Queen Grill & Chill Restaurant, and Patricia Demint, indivdually, for unpaid overtime wages in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law.  Generally, the Plaintiffs contended that the Company subjected her to work more than forty hours in a workweek, yet Defendants failed to compensate Plaintiff at the statutorily-required overtime rate of one and one-half times her regular rate of pay, or one and one-half times the minimum wage, whichever is greater, for all hours in excess of forty in a week.  Instead, whenever Plaintiff worked over forty hours in a week, both before and after she became a manager, Defendants paid Plaintiff at her straight-time hourly rate of pay for her first forty hours only, and then paid her for any additional hours beyond forty at her straight-time rate by attributing those hours do a different week of work when she worked fewer than forty hours, thereby avoiding paying her overtime premium pay and often delaying payment of those wages.  Additionally, Defendants violated the FLSA and the NYLL by failing to pay Plaintiff at a rate that was at least equal to the statutorily-required minimum wage for all hours worked from April 2019 through September 2019, and instead randomly chose when and how much to pay Plaintiff during this period, at amounts that totaled less than minimum wage for all hours worked. Furthermore, Defendants further violated the NYLL and the NYCRR by failing to: provide Plaintiff with spread-of-hours pay whenever her workday exceeded ten hours from start to finish; pay Plaintiff, a manual worker, at least as frequently as on a weekly basis; provide Plaintiff with accurate wage statements on each payday; and provide Plaintiff with any wage notice at the time of hire, let alone an accurate one. A notice of acceptance of a Rule 68 Offer of Judgment having been filed having offered to allow entry of judgment to be taken against Defendant and in favor of Plaintiffs, the case concluded in a judgment in the amount of $150,000.00.  Michael J. Borrelli handled the matter on behalf of the firm.