Former Domino’s Delivery Drivers File Suit in PA Over Allegedly Unlawful Pay Practices

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Two former Domino’s pizza delivery drivers claim in a lawsuit that their ex-employers’ pay practices caused their wages to fall below the federal minimum hourly rate. The plaintiffs allege co-defendants JC Washington Inc. and JC Northern Pike, LLC, who operate several Domino’s restaurants in Pennsylvania, failed to properly reimburse drivers for their delivery-related expenses and unlawfully applied a tip credit to their wages.

According to the complaint, delivery drivers were required to use their own vehicles to deliver pizza and other food from the defendants’ restaurants and should have received reimbursement for their expenses. Instead of reimbursing drivers’ actual expenses, the case argues, the defendants paid them a flat rate per delivery regardless of the number of miles driven. This pay practice failed to cover all the costs of gasoline, car maintenance, insurance, depreciation, cell phone data, GPS, and the other expenses drivers incurred in the performance of their delivery duties, the lawsuit says. As a result, the defendants allegedly received an unlawful “kickback” subtracted from drivers’ wages that caused the workers’ pay to fall below the required minimum rate.

Moreover, the lawsuit claims delivery drivers spent “approximately half of their time” working inside the defendants’ restaurants on non-tipped duties. Nevertheless, the defendants, according to the suit, unlawfully applied a tip credit to drivers’ wages even when they were performing duties for which they couldn’t receive customer tips. The lawsuit claims this practice violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s tip credit requirements and precluded the defendants from paying drivers at a sub-minimum wage rate.