MANCHESTER, NH – A federal court has ordered a North Conway restaurant to pay a total of $148,128 – $74,064 in tips and back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages – after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found the employers kept workers’ tips illegally and failed to pay them overtime wages when required by law.

Investigators with the department’s Wage and Hour Division determined that, between February 2020 and February 2022, Luchador Tacos LLC and owners Joshua Mitchell and Katherine Mitchell violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when they did the following:

• Kept employees’ credit card tips.
• Paid at least one employee straight-time wages for overtime hours worked.
• Did not pay some employees one and one-half times their regular rates of pay for hours over 40 in a workweek.
• Calculated tipped employees’ overtime rates improperly, basing the rates on their cash wage as opposed to their regular rates of pay.

In addition to recovering wages and damages, the consent judgment and order obtained by the department’s Office of the Solicitor in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire enjoins and restrains the restaurant and its owners permanently from violating the FLSA’s minimum wage, overtime and recordkeeping requirements.

The order also requires the employers to cooperate with any future investigations, prohibits them from discharging or discriminating against any employee engaged in FLSA-protected activity, such as filing a complaint with,...

Read Full Story: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20221017