The Big M Casino Hit with Lawsuit Over Alleged Unpaid Minimum Wages

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The Big M Casino, Inc. is the defendant in a lawsuit filed by a former 10-year-plus employee who alleges the South Carolina entity owes unpaid minimum wages stemming from improper tip pooling among dealers and shift supervisors.

The suit explains that shift supervisors at the Big M spend fractions of their shifts as dealers while spending the rest of the time rotating as relief for supervisors. All dealers and supervisors are paid pursuant to an hourly tip credit, the case says, while dealers are required to participate in a mandatory tip pool from which portions of their tips are redistributed from dealers to shift supervisors. This tip pool is illegal, the lawsuit claims, in that shift supervisors are not employees who “customarily and regularly” receive tips. Further, the case adds, the tip credit applied to employees’ hourly pay is unlawful in that the defendant violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) provision stating tip pooling may only take place when tips are shared among other employees who regularly receive customer tips.

Also at issue in the suit is time spent by the plaintiff on the defendant’s day and evening casino boat cruises. The plaintiff claims he regularly worked later than his scheduled time as a result of said cruises routinely returning after they were supposed to. Members of the proposed collective were not paid for this additional work time, either before a cruise disembarked or after it returned, the lawsuit claims.