COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two waitresses were awarded $700,000 in class action settlement against a steak restaurant franchise after they filed a federal lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The two waitresses, Rachel Bontempi and Tiffany Tatham, said they and others employed at the Texas Roadhouse on Columbiana Drive were paid $2.13 an hour while their tips went into what the suit called an “invalid tip pool.”
The tip pool was then divvied up and dispersed among the wait staff and other employees, some of whom did not “serve customers or have any interaction with them,” the suit said.
The 2015 federal lawsuit argued that the act was a violation of the minimum wage portion of the FLSA, because the restaurant paid them under minimum wage and claimed a tip credit under federal law.
The suit was settled as a class action, meaning others who worked under the tip pool at certain Texas Roadhouse restaurants in Columbia and Anderson will be eligible to receive benefits.
Eligible employees need to have worked at any of the Columbia restaurants between May 12, 2014 and April 27, 2015. Those at the Anderson location need to have worked between January 8, 2013 and December 31, 2014 to be eligible.
Those who fall under that year time period in both restaurants will be notified in the weeks ahead.
Despite the settlement, attorneys for Texas Roadhouse denied the restaurant chain “engaged in any wrongdoing, deny that their practices violated federal law or any state laws and contend that the case could not be maintained as a collective if it were to proceed to trial”
The attorneys said they ultimately settled to avoid the “expense, inconvenience and distraction of further litigation.”