FLSA Class Action Filed Against Harvest Moorestown

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

Harvest Moorestown LLC, the operating company of the Harvest Seasonal Grill & Wine Bar in New Jersey, is the defendant in a proposed class action filed by a former server who claims the company unlawfully forced proposed class members to share tips with food expediters, thereby forfeiting its right to claim a tip credit on workers’ wages to satisfy its minimum wage obligations. The defendant’s practice of forcing servers and bartenders to share tips with non-tipped employees, the lawsuit claims, requires the restaurant to compensate the workers at the $7.25 minimum wage benchmark, not the $2.13 tip credited restaurant minimum wage.

From the lawsuit:

“While restaurants may utilize a tip credit to satisfy their minimum wage obligations to servers and bartenders, they forfeit the right to do so when they require servers and bartenders to share tips with other restaurant employees who do not ‘customarily and regularly receive tips. Federal courts interpreting statutory language hold that restaurants lose their right to utilize a tip credit when tips are shared with employees—such as [the defendant’s] Expeditors—whose direct customer interaction is minimal.”