Recently, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania approved a settlement of the lawsuit and authorized the Court Authorized Notice of Settlement of Collective Action Lawsuit (“Notice”). You may be entitled to a payment from the settlement of this collective action lawsuit (the “Action”) if you received the Notice, you previously opted into this lawsuit against Chesapeake & Delaware Brewing Holdings, LLC, and Iron Hill Brewery, LLC (“Iron Hill” or “Defendants”) by filing a consent to join the action.
The Named Plaintiff (“Christina Reynolds”) sued Iron Hill alleging that they improperly paid her and other servers (“Tipped Employees”) less than the statutory minimum wage required under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) when they performed non-tip generating duties (“side work”) in excessive of 20 percent of their time in a work week. The Named Plaintiff filed the lawsuit as a collective action under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). You previously agreed for the Named Plaintiff and her attorneys to act on your behalf in this Lawsuit.
Iron Hill has denied the allegations and asserts that Tipped Employees were compensated correctly under the law. Nevertheless, the Parties have agreed to settle this Lawsuit for the purpose of avoiding further disputes and litigation with its attendant risk, expense, and inconvenience.
Iron Hill will not take an adverse action against any participant in this Lawsuit for accepting a settlement payment.
Under the allocation formula created by the settlement, the settlement payment amount is based on the number of hours worked as a Tipped Employee pursuant to Iron Hill’s records, during the Class Period, May 16, 2016 through September 5, 2021. Specifically, the hours being compensated represent the time spent performing non-tip generating work and for which Iron Hill paid the tip credit rate, rather than full minimum wage. This Settlement is not intended to pay the full minimum wage for all hours worked.
The gross settlement payment amount will be made payable in three separate checks, allocated in the following manner: (1) twenty-five percent will be allocated to the claims asserted in the Action for alleged unpaid federal wages and other alleged federal wage-related damages; (2) twenty-five percent will be allocated to the claims asserted in the Action for alleged unpaid state wages and other alleged state wage-related damages; and (3) fifty percent will be allocated to the claims asserted in the Action for alleged liquidated damages, penalties, interest, and other relief.
To understand your options and how your rights will be affected, as well as the deadlines for action on your part, please read all of the Court Notice of Settlement of Collective Action Lawsuit.