Captain George's Hit with Employees' Unpaid Wage Claims

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Three former servers of Captain George’s seafood restaurants have filed suit against the restaurants’ nine operating companies and four individual owners. The defendants allegedly own and operate four restaurants located in Virginia and the Carolinas and fail to pay their employees proper wages. The plaintiffs claim their employers paid them less than the tip-credited minimum rate required by law, and on top of that, neglected to satisfy all the requirements to take a tip credit. Specifically, the defendants failed to notify their employees that they would be paying them less than minimum wage to account for tips they would receive, the suit argues, and required them to spend at least 20% of their shifts performing non-tipped duties. Additionally, the defendants required tipped employees to surrender a percentage of their tips to “the house,” or the restaurant itself, and illegally allowed managers to participate in the tip pool, according to the complaint. As a result, the plaintiffs claim the restaurants were required to pay them the full minimum wage and failed to do so.

Besides the alleged minimum wage violations, the defendants also neglected to pay their employees at the proper time-and-a-half overtime rate required under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the complaint alleges. The suit claims the plaintiffs have been damaged by the defendants “willful failure” to pay proper wages and seeks injunctive and monetary relief.