Former Employees Sue Los Tres Amigos Over Allegedly Unlawful Tip Pooling Practices, Unpaid Wages

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

Two former Los Tres Amigos employees have filed a proposed class and collective action against the following defendants over alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Michigan labor law:

• Tres Amigos, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – Chelsea, LLC
• Los Tres Amigos – Howell, Inc
• Los Tres Amigos – Jonesville, LLC
• Los Tres Amigos – Livonia, LLC
• Los Tres Amigos – Owosso, LLC
• Los Tres Amigos Downtown Lansing, LLC
• N.R.P.P., LLC
• Los Tres Amigos Farmington Downtown, LLC
• Los Tres Amigos Plymouth, LLC
• Redline Trading, LLC
• Los Tres Amigos South Side, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – Canton, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – East Lansing, Inc.
• Hacienda Los Amigos, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – Mason Restaurant, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – Mason, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – Michigan Center, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – West Jackson, Inc.
• Los Tres Amigos – West Saginaw, Inc.

The lawsuit, which also names three individual owners as defendants, takes issue with the employers allegedly requiring certain employees to forfeit up to 15 percent of their tips into a tip pool, which Los Tres Amigos supposedly claimed would be distributed among other employees, including servers, hostesses, and food runners. Instead, the complaint claims, the defendants pocketed workers’ rightful tips. From the complaint:

“In reality, Defendants does not maintain and [sic] ‘tip pool’ and never redistributes the tips turned over by the servers. Instead, Defendants convert the tips to their own use and do not redistribute any portion of the tips to the employees who are supposed to be part of the tip pool.”

The case argues that this tip pooling arrangement was unlawful, as the FLSA requires any tip pool money to be dispersed only among regularly “tipped” employees. 

The suit further argues that the alleged tip pooling arrangement entitles the plaintiffs – former servers – and similarly situated employees whose wages were partially retained by the defendants to be paid at least the full minimum wage rate, rather than at a tip-credited hourly rate.