Biel and her partners at Au Fudge restaurant are sued by employees who claim they were not given proper meal and rest breaks, and were denied earned wages under various illegal payroll practices.
- Sep 15, 2017
AceShowbiz - Jessica Biel and her partners at Au Fudge restaurant are being sued by nine mostly former employees. They claim they were not paid thousands of dollars in gratuities and were not given proper meal and rest breaks.
In the suit filed on Wednesday, September 13 in L.A.'s Superior Court of California, the nine plaintiffs, who served in positions including host, server, server assistant, runner, barista, au pair or bartender, say the restaurant owners, including Biel, stylist Estee Stanley, Joey Gonzalez, Kimberly Muller and Jonathan Rollo, "wrongfully converted" the 22|percent| gratuity charged at private events and buyouts, where clients pay to rent the entire restaurant.
"Each of them had their gratuities wrongfully converted and were improperly denied meal and rest breaks, overtime compensation and earned wages under various illegal payroll practices," the plaintiffs allege. "Defendants charged hundreds of thousands of dollars in gratuities to private-party customers and converted said gratuities to themselves in order to pad their own pockets and deprive plaintiffs their just compensation in violation of law."
The staffers are said to be "young adults new to the workforce and new to Los Angeles" who did double duty by working at Au Fudge while "trying to begin a career in the entertainment industry." The suit further claims that "plaintiffs were unfamiliar with workers' rights and were ill-prepared to deal with violations of their rights in the workplace."
The employees are seeking $430,100 in gratuities from the events and $31,549 in missed rest breaks plus $1,000,000 in punitive damages. Much of the sum was from industry events at the restaurant for companies like Netflix and Amazon.
The suit details that a Netflix event on July 28, 2016 saw the streamer paying $80,220.19 which included $13,271.50 in tips that the plaintiffs never received. An Amazon event on May 7, 2017 allegedly saw a receipt for $94,416.70, of which $14,630 was due to plaintiffs, the suit claims.
Alexandra Desage, not a plaintiff but a former director of events, says in the suit she approached one of the partners, Rollo, on several occasions to question the restaurant's policies on gratuities but was told "don't worry about it." She felt "he was blowing me off and knowingly burying his head in the sand." She resigned from the post in June 2017.
