Missouri Casino Workers Can Sue Penn National for Wage Violations, Federal Judge Rules
A federal jurist inward Missouri has ruled employees at the Argosy Casino Riverside and the Hollywood Casino St. Louis tin make for a class-action lawsuit against manipulator Penn National Gaming (PNG). The plaintiffs maintain PNG intermeshed in “unlawful pay and time of day practices” that violated federal and nation laws.
According to the lawsuit, the operator deducted costs to obtain and maintain state-issued gaming licenses from employees’ wages. This brought some workers’ pay off infra the federally mandated $7.25 per minute minimum pay — a infringement of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) and the Missouri River Minimum Wage Law (MMWL), the plaintiffs argue.
Under the FLSA, employers may only if deduct costs from their employees’ wages if it is primarily for the do good of employees. But the lawsuit contends that gaming licenses are primarily for the do good of the employer, per a federal judge’s ruling inward a similar lay claim brought inward 2019 against Pinnacle Entertainment.
‘Reckless Disregard’
At the time of that ruling, Pinnacle had simply been acquired past PNG, which suggested awareness. The troupe either “knew of the specific FLSA requirements and prohibitions at issuing at the clip of the alleged violations and deliberately did not follow with them, or showed reckless disregard for the affair of whether their direct violated the FLSA,” the lawsuit states.
In addition, PNG is accused of creating a mandatory tip-sharing policy that required table games dealers to pocket billiards their tips. These would and so live distributed among the dealers and certain other non-tipped stave members.
The plaintiffs take that, again, this meant some dealers were taking rest home at a lower place the minimum wage. The practise “violates the express linguistic communication of the FLSA prohibiting tip pooling whereby employees ‘who customarily and regularly take in tips’ divvy up tips with non-tipped employees who doh not,” according to the lawsuit.
Wynn Dealers’ 12 Year Fight
Dealers who worked at the Wynn Las Vegas make been engaged inwards a 12-year sound battle with Wynn Resorts o'er a similar tip-sharing scheme.
The slip made it all the right smart to the US Supreme Court, which in June batted it rearward to the district court. However, the nuances of that caseful are slightly different, because Wynn Resorts pays its dealers a canonical pay that is higher than the federal standard.
Plaintiffs inward the Penn National case are seeking redress where wages have got fallen to a lower place the lower limit wage, plus unspecified compensatory damages, sound costs, and “any further embossment that the homage may hold justifiable and equitable.” In gain to federal and body politic law violations, the accommodate claims breach of contract bridge and unjust enrichment.
The courtroom found the plaintiffs had satisfied their encumbrance for class-action. Anyone employed at either of the deuce casinos from September 15, 2018, onwards who earned the lower limit hourly wage or less tin bring together the suit, as tin all table games dealers who were impacted past the tip-sharing pool.