Overtime rates take center stage in a California class action against a San Diego restaurant chain. In a lawsuit filed in May 2019, a group of restaurant employees seek damages for what they believe are illegal employment practices. The Plaintiff was a cook for the restaurant between 2017 and April 2019. The Plaintiff regularly worked overtime for the Defendant. He now claims he was paid for his overtime hours at the regular rate and not at at 1.5 overtime rate mandated by California labor law.
The Defendant is DA Kitchen, which does business as Homestyle Hawaiian. Homestyle Hawaiian is a Hawaiian poke restaurant chain that also provides catering services in California. The Defendant operates six locations in San Diego. The Plaintiff contends that Homestyle’s illegal employment practices were common among all of Defendant’s locations and applied to a large group of employees in California. The Complaint was, therefore, filed as an employment class action, seeking to represent both the Plaintiff and all other similarly situated employees who worked for Defendant in the last 4 years.
The lawsuit was filed with the San Diego Superior Court in California. Beyond the unpaid overtime claims, the Complaint also alleges that the Defendant failed to provide the Plaintiff and other California employees with compliant meal breaks and rest breaks. Furthermore, the Complaint claims that the failure to pay overtime resulted in additional violations of the California Labor Code, including the failure to provide California employees with accurate wage statements and the failure to pay terminated employees all wages due to them upon termination. Finally, the Complaint claims that these California employment law violations also constitute an unfair business practice.
The lawsuit seeks damages to compensate Homestyle’s California employees for the unpaid and underpaid overtime, as well as for unpaid meal break and rest break premiums. The lawsuit also seeks monetary penalties for the inaccurate pay statements and untimely payment of wages to the terminated employees.
For more information about the lawsuit, please feel free to review the filed complaint here.
If you believe you are not paid the correct rate of overtime, please contact our California employment attorney for a free consultation.