Tip Theft

Outten & Golden attorneys are pioneers in the representation of tipped employees in New York restaurants and on the national retail scene. Tip misappropriation by employers is a growing problem in America; it occurs when an employer fails to pay their tipped employees minimum wage and does not allow them to keep their earned tips. 

Although the law provides that workers must be paid the federal and state mandated minimum wage, restaurant and other “tipped” workers are exempt from these requirements if certain conditions are met. If the worker is a tipped employee by the customs and standards of that industry, an employer can take a “tip credit” against the minimum wage and pay less than minimum wage if the worker receives a certain amount of compensation in customer tips. Unfortunately, employers unlawfully take tips in many circumstances and that wage theft hurts these workers. 

Outten & Golden attorneys were among the first legal advocates for tipped employees, successfully representing them in the earliest cases against high-profile restaurants for violations such as giving servers’ tips to supervisors and managers, taking tips that were billed directly to the customer, and forcing workers to share tips with ineligible workers.*

(*Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.)