Owners of Evio’s Pizza & Grill Facing Lawsuit Alleging Unpaid Overtime, Retaliatory Firing

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The operators of Evio’s Pizza & Grill in North Miami are the defendants in a lawsuit in which a former employee claims he’s owed nearly $11,500 in unpaid overtime wages. The plaintiff, who the case says performed general restaurant work and made deliveries for the defendants from September 2015 through December 2017, claims he always worked six or seven days per week but was never paid time-and-a-half overtime wages for his weekly hours worked past 40.

The complaint claims the plaintiff worked an average of 65 hours per week during his tenure and was compensated both by paycheck and in cash. Around October 2017, the lawsuit says, the plaintiff was promised a wage increase by one of the individual defendants. Instead, the case states, the plaintiff’s hours were cut the following month.

After the plaintiff was reportedly granted a rest period from December 15^th to the 22^nd to recuperate from a “hypertensive crisis,” the defendants allegedly “confronted and verbally attacked” the man over his attempts to receive proper overtime pay.

“He was also accused of recruiting other employees to file a lawsuit against [the defendants],” the complaint reads, claiming that the incident led the plaintiff to experience a spike in his blood pressure.

The lawsuit states that after the plaintiff recovered, he again confronted the defendants over receiving overtime pay. This time, the defendants agreed to pay the plaintiff his unpaid time-and-a-half wages, with the plaintiff attempting to settle his grievance through negotiations that spanned multiple days, the complaint claims.

When the plaintiff went to pick up his check from the defendants’ home in early January 2018, one of the individual defendants was not at home as previously agreed upon, according to the suit. During a phone call, the plaintiff was allegedly “insulted and humiliated” one more time before being told the defendants would “never pay him a single dollar.”

After his alleged retaliatory discharge, the plaintiff received a letter from the defendants in which they reportedly pretended as though the man was still employed, and that the restaurant was waiting for the man to provide medical clearance allowing him to return to work. The plaintiff claims this was an attempt by the defendants to prevent him from collecting unemployment benefits.