The U.S. Department of Labor on April 25 announced an $890,000 judgment against a New Hampshire restaurant company that owns just two local establishments. The judgment was for several wage and hour violations, including recordkeeping, failure to pay overtime, and misuse of the federal tip credit.
If the $890,000 price tag concerns you as a business owner, it should. This case is not an outlier, as cases like this happen all the time at the state and federal level (and those are just for the violations known about). All too often, our businesses don't undergo compliance checkups, especially in the wage and hour field where checkups are vitally needed and where they would serve our business the most.
Recent media stories about investigations into the company mentioned above as well as LaBelle Winery and Dos Amigos are uncomfortably prescient. Going through a state or federal Department of Labor investigation is not enjoyable, but it is worse when hefty penalties and back wages lurk on the other side. Federal lawsuits filed by employees over the failure to pay wages are often worse, given the adversarial nature of litigation, the threat of liquidated damages, and the payment of mandatory attorneys' fees. Class actions are in a class of their own.
Many wage and hour violations can be identified and cured with periodic compliance monitoring. Trust when I say that correcting a...
New Delhi / Atlanta: Indian-origin doctor Dr. Jitendra Patel, along with his Atlanta-based clinic Advanced Urology, has agreed to a settlement of approximately 161 crore (USD 14 million) to resolv...