The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit in federal court against a Jefferson City buffet restaurant and its owner, after investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division found servers worked for tips only and cooks were paid a set cash salary regardless of how many hours they worked, leading to violations of minimum wage or overtime regulations.
Filed on September 17, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Central Division against Dragon Kitchen of Jefferson City and its owner Danny Cheng, the lawsuit seeks $1,871,840 – representing $935,920 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages ‒ for the 26 affected workers. The department also assessed a civil money penalty of $35,672 for willful violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The action comes after the department’s Wage and Hour Division found, from at least Dec. 21, 2021, through July 31, 2024, the employer violated federal regulations by doing the following:
- Paying cooks and other back-of-the-house employees straight-time pay rates when overtime wages should have been paid.
- Failing to pay servers and other front-of-the-house employees the required minimum wage and overtime pay. Paying servers only the tips they received.
- Not maintaining complete and accurate time records, as required.
“Allowing servers to work for tips only and pay a set cash wage to cooks blatantly violates federal wage law. All too often, our food service industry investigations find employers violating federal overtime, minimum wage and recordkeeping regulations. At the same time, workers are unaware of their rights and afraid to question their paychecks’ accuracy,” said Wage and Hour District Director Noah Lee in St. Louis, Missouri. “The Department of Labor will continue to hold employers accountable for verifying that they are paying workers as the law requires and make sure every worker is paid what they rightfully earned.”
In addition to paying back wages, damages and penalties, the lawsuit seeks to forbid Dragon Kitchen and Cheng from future FLSA violations and requires them to provide employees information on their federal wage protections in languages employees’ request.
In fiscal year 2023, the Wage and Hour Division recovered more than $29 million in back wages for food service industry workers nationwide.
The division’s restaurant compliance toolkit explains wage laws for employers and workers.