The following article was first published on Shipman & Goodwin attorney Dan Schwartz’ Connecticut Employment Law Blog. It is reposted here with permission.
The story of Connecticut’s tip-credit law is like one of those television procedural shows—full of drama and seemingly never ending.
The Connecticut Appellate Court added three more chapters to this long-running drama this week—and all three are good news for restaurant and hospitality employers.
In a trio of companion decisions officially released March 31, the Appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s granting of motions to strike in Farias v. Rodriguez, Woodford v. HRG Management, LLC, and Vasquez v. Sliders Restaurant Group, LLC.
Farias is the lead decision—a detailed opinion that provides the court’s full analytical framework—while Woodford and Vasquez are companion cases that expressly adopt Farias‘ reasoning and conclusions.
Let’s start with Farias, which does the heavy lifting for all three decisions.
The plaintiff, Daniel Farias, was employed as a bartender at several Puerto Vallarta restaurant locations in Connecticut—including the Orange and Fairfield locations—from 2011 until 2022.
He brought a putative class action alleging that the defendants violated the old version of regulation §31-62-E3 (“old E3”) by failing to properly record the amount claimed as a tip credit on a weekly basis and failing to obtain signed weekly tip statements from servers.
He also alleged violations of old § 31-62-E4 (“old E4”...
Highlights The $549.5 million Perfectus Aluminum settlement is more than ten times larger than the previous record for a customs-related False Claims Act (FCA) resolution and the latest in a stri...