A dozen current and former employees of Northstar Café in Easton and Westerville are suing the restaurant owners, alleging wage and tip theft.
The employees allege Northstar Café, owned by Darren Malhame, paid tipped employees less than they were owed under the federal Wages and Fair Labor Standards Act and Ohio wage laws. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio last week.
The complaint alleges the restaurant pools tips accrued by tipped employees across the company and spreads the tips to management and supervisors illegally. It also alleges Northstar Cafe paid employees less than the Ohio minimum wage and paid them incorrectly for overtime.
Bob DeRose, a managing partner at Barkan Meizlish DeRose Cox law firm which is representing the employees, said his clients feel cheated by Northstar. He said they are seeking a class action designation and say hundreds of other employees could join if the U.S. District Court of Southern Ohio grants it, allowing potential litigants to be notified.
"They're understandably upset. They want to get paid what they're owed. They want to stop the practice and make sure others who have worked there find out about it and get the pay that they're owed," DeRose said.
Northstar Café sent a statement to WOSU denying any wrongdoing.
"The claims made in the lawsuit are factually inaccurate. Northstar is extremely careful to ensure all policies are legally compliant and fair. While we take these allegations seriously, we believe this lawsuit has no merit," the statement said.
The restaurant hasn't formally responded to the lawsuit in court as of Thursday.
Northstar Cafe owns four other locations in the Short North, Liberty Center, Shaker Heights and Clintonville.
The complaint said with both the alleged wage and tip theft and improper overtime compensation, employees were paid less than the federal minimum wage, which is almost $3 less than Ohio's minimum wage of $10.10 per hour. It alleges the company has followed the federal minimum wage since at least 2020.
Northstar Cafe, like many other restaurants with tipped employees takes tip credits, which allow the company to pay a tipped minimum wage different from that of non-tipped employees at $5.05 per hour. Tips make up the difference adding more cash to the employees' take home pay.
Employers can pool together tips accrued by employees at the end of the day and disburse the money among tipped employees, but the lawsuit alleges Northstar distributed tips to employees considered not customarily or regularly tipped, such as kitchen staff, supervisors and management.
Tipped employees who perform tip-producing duties are entitled to minimum wage during those hours, but the lawsuit alleges the restaurant didn't follow this law and when the company differentiated between tipped work and tip-producing work, it still didn't follow state law.
"They've been cheated. They work the hours, put in the time, provided services to the benefit of the employer's customers and business, and then turn around and didn't get paid their fair wages from the work that they did," DeRose said.
DeRose said his law firm is seeing an alarming spike in people seeking legal advice or aid on both wage theft and employers abusing tipped minimum wage laws.
DeRose said his law firm reviewed the paystubs and pay records that his clients provided them and many of the allegations in the complaint are borne out of the actual paper records that the employees brought to the law firm that the employer uses to pay their employees.
"They made some pretty egregious mistakes," he said.
In response to Northstar denying wrongdoing, DeRose said he wouldn't expect anything less in terms of response because the employer is going to engage in the practice and he doubts that one filing of a piece of paper is going to get them to read it.
"We did our homework," he said.
The lawsuit says the employees’ attorneys are asking for back pay of all tips in the past three years and either 6% of total unpaid wages or $200 for each failure to pay wages. This is in addition to other damages or penalties the court may add.
