Plaintiff Keith Noble filed suit against his former employer, The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated, on Monday in the Eastern District of New York. The complaint alleges that the famed restaurant chain misclassified Noble as exempt from overtime wages.
The complaint describes Noble as “a long-time, loyal, highly-performing employee of Cheesecake Factory.” Noble had worked for the defendant for over 15 years, spending the last 9 years as a kitchen manager in both North Carolina and New York state. As a manager, Noble was considered exempt and paid a set salary rather than an hourly rate.
Although the plaintiff worked for the defendant as a manager, he asserts that he was required to spend his working hours performing kitchen work, such as preparing food, cleaning, running orders, and other manual tasks. Noble notes that the majority of his shifts were spent performing these non-exempt tasks, such that he would spend “only a small minority of the time [performing] duties that could properly be classified as managerial in nature.”
Noble maintains that he worked long hours and was extremely productive for the defendant, usually working around 50-60 hours per week. Since he was classified as exempt, plaintiff Noble was not paid overtime for any week that he worked in excess of 40 hours, even though the majority of his time was spent doing non-exempt tasks like kitchen work, he argued.
Using the overtime formulas provided for misclassified employees by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL), the plaintiff argues that the defendant owes him more than $70,000.00 in unpaid overtime in addition to other damages.
The complaint further alleges that the defendant failed to provide Noble with payment records and wage statements, thus entitling him to an additional $10,000.00 in penalties. The NYLL also requires that manual workers be paid no less frequently than once a week. Due to the nature of his tasks, Noble claims that he spent more than 25% of his time performing physical labor and should be classified as a manual worker. The manual worker classification, Noble claims, renders half of his pay late under the NYLL and entitles him to $20,200.00 in liquidated damages.
The complaint cites an FLSA overtime wage claim, a New York state overtime claim, New York state wage notice and wage statement claims, and pay frequency violations under the NYLL. The plaintiff is seeking damages, penalties, litigation fees, pre- and post-judgment interest, and any other relief deemed equitable by the Court.
The plaintiff is represented by Michael P. Pappas Law Firm, P.C.
