Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog

Tip pooling is the cause of a wage lawsuit between Wynn Las Vegas and its dealers. Disputed is the casino’s policy of sharing dealers tips with their floor supervisors, a pay practice instituted in 2006.

According to dealers, the payouts from the tip pool were a way for the casino to pay managers more without having to pay them out-of-pocket, a less-common violation of federal tip pooling law but nevertheless an illegal pay practice if true.

About 600 dealers have been affected by the tip pooling practice since it went into place. Real wages for dealers, according to one dealer interviewed, has dropped an estimated 25 percent.

Previous to 2006, tip pooling was in place and followed industry practice of redistributing dealers’ tips among dealers only.

Testimony was presented this month to Nevada’s labor commissioner where the casino's dealers have taken their case, asking that this tip pooling payout policy be ruled illegal and that $35 million in back pay and penalties be awarded to the nearly 500 dealers affected. The first formal complaints and wage claims go back to 2006 when the tip-pooling policy was implemented.

Labor laws governing tip pooling are pretty clear on at least one point: participants in a tip pool must be regularly tipped employees, and employment law expressly forbids managers from taking any tip pool.

Regardless of the labor commissioner's decision, this tip pooling lawsuit is expected to go to the state supreme court and its outcome affect all Nevada tip earners. The court's decision could mean restitution for tip pool abuses if the tipped employees win the lawsuit. Or, it could mean Nevada employees who depend on tips for their subsistence--busboys, waiters and waitresses, bartenders, etc.--may be subject to management's taking their tips and paying whomever they feel like with these tip moneys.

If you believe you may have tips unlawfully taken from you by your employer through tip pooling or by other means, I encourage you to complete our online TN wage lawsuit inquiry form or to call our Nashville, TN employment law offices directly at 615-353-0930.

Or, to borrow the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s less modest description from the title of its press release:
RAMPANT SEX HARASSMENT COSTS LOWE’S $1.7 MILLION IN SETTLEMENT OF EEOC LAWSUIT

Lowe’s, the nation’s second-largest home improvement retailer, has agreed to pay $1.72 million in settlement to three Washington State employees in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the EEOC. Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse Inc. must, per the court's consent decree, revise store policies on discrimination, harassment, and retaliation to affect all employees at the company's stores in Washington and Oregon and report regularly to the EEOC.

According to the EEOC sexual harassment lawsuit, Lowe's store managers since 2005 actively engaged in and encouraged sexual harassment of male and female employees and then retaliated against these victims when they made objected to this unlawful, and undignified, treatment.

More specifically, one female employee was sexually assaulted in her manager’s office after having been repeatedly propositioned in innuendos. Two heterosexual male employees, like the sexually assaulted female also in their 20s, were repeatedly called gay and subjected to graphic sexual references by department heads. When these two coworkers sought the help of the store manager, he told the two they shouldn’t spend so much time together. The EEOC’s sexual harassment lawsuit asserted that Lowe’s failed to take prompt or even remedial action to stop the sexual harassment, an assertion that had Lowe's seek the counsel of four separate law firms in an attempt to disprove.

As a result of over six months of daily harassment and hostile work environments, two of the three employees were terminated. The third, one of the two straight males, resigned. This loss of employment and the sexually hostile work environment were the reasons for the EEOC discrimination lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Continue reading "Lowe’s Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Settles for $1.72 Million" »

Hospira, Inc., a Illinois medical device manufacturer, has initiated a product recall for medical devices with defective AC power cords. These cords are manufactured by Electri-Cord Manufacturing Corporation. Click for a defective power cord image courtesy of FDA Recall page.

This medical product recall was initiated in response to reports of these defective power cords’ sparking, charring, and catching fire. Yes, for the following medical products designed to ensure the health and longevity of U.S. citizens, a patient may find him or herself subject to electrical shock, immolated, or injured from total device failure:

Continue reading "FDA Dangerous Device Recall –
Hospira Medical Equipment Recall for Defective AC Cords" »

New patient admissions at Life Care Center of Chattanooga Nursing Home have been suspended by the Tennessee Department of Health. The facility recently underwent a complaint investigation and survey and multiple deficiencies were found to exist that jeopardize and potentially jeopardize the health, safety and welfare of residents. The deficiencies cited were in the areas of administration, performance improvement, physician services, nursing services, medical records and pharmaceutical services.

Additionally, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have terminated the nursing home's Medicare provider agreement effective August 14, 2009. Fines were levied by the State Department of Health for $7,500.00 and a federal civil penalty in the amount of $6,300.00 per day.

As we find in many of our nursing home cases, it appears to be a matter of profits over people. The facility has chosen to not have an adequate staffing level to ensure that the needs of the residents are being met. We find in many cases that the record-keeping associated with the care does not always match the care given and that residents are not receiving the level of care that is purported to be given by the facilities. This closing is simply another in a long line of facilities that have had their ability to operate suspended or terminated because they were not giving even the minimal level of care that is mandated.

If you feel you or a family member has suffered abuse or neglect in a nursing home, we represent victims and their families to assist them in getting the help they need and compensation for past wrongs. Please feel free to contact us at the Higgins Firm for a free evaluation.

The City of Franklin, Tennessee has settled a wrongful termination lawsuit filed against it by Joe Williams, a former City Solid Waste Director, according to an article in the Tennessean. The settlement amount included a payment of $2,000,000.00 and a formal apology to Mr. Williams from the Mayor of Franklin. Due to the City's open meeting rules, the terms of the settlement became public record when set for approval by the city aldermen.

The crux of the lawsuit involved the alleged downloading of pornography on City computers under the control of Mr. Williams. According to facts developed during the lawsuit, it was clear that any pornographic images were the result of spam e-mail. According to the plaintiff, this would have been readily apparent had the City bothered to do a rudimentary check of the computer system and the images in question. However, the City jumped right to action, publicized the allegations and promptly fired Mr. Williams after a brief, eight minute hearing. Once the source of the images was discovered and it was shown that the City did not perform their due diligence in determining an appropriate plan of action to deal with the allegations, the settlement was not far behind.

The lawsuit mixes a couple of different areas of law and potential actions. First, Tennessee is a right to work State. That means generally you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all, as long as you are not fired for an inappropriate reason, such as religious beliefs, race, gender, national origin or age. Secondly, the lawsuit touched upon workplace harassment and hostile environments. Hostile environments are not limited to physically threatening environments; they also include workplaces that are hostile because they promote a culture of sexual harassment or religious, cultural or racial bias. Thirdly, and likely more directly, the lawsuit also included libel and slander issues arising from the publicity involved in "exposing" the plaintiff's alleged accessing of pornographic images. Since the actual allegations were unfounded and proven so after a very simple check of the computer system, the disgrace of portraying the plaintiff in this bad light and the effects that had on his relationship with family and friends played heavily in the settlement.

The attorneys at the Higgins Firm represent individuals who have been the victim of workplace discrimination or harassment. If you feel you have been the victim of sexual, racial, age or religious harassment, contact our law office for a free consultation.

Tennessee wage workers’ received what will likely be their final minimum wage increase for a while when the federal minimum wage (including tipped employees') increased last month to $7.25. Tennessee, having no minimum wage statutes of its own, followed this last of three annual minimum wage increases begun in 2006.

Unfortunately, if history be any indicator, tipped Tennessee employees, such as wait staff and other hospitality workers receiving $30 or more a month in tips, may not see the benefit of this increase, and may end up taking home less than the minimum wage of even three years ago, due to a practice known as tip pooling.

Tip pooling is not in-itself an illegal practice. Though the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) states that a tip is the exclusive property of the employee receiving the gratuity, judges have decided, through a series of convoluted court decisions, that tip pooling (requiring tipped employees to pool a portion of their tips together to pay other employees) is legal--as a general practice. What gets many Tennessee service industry proprietors in trouble is when tip pools are used to pay-off underpaid un-tipped employees at the tipped employee’s expense.

If you earn $2.13 as a tipped employee in Tennessee, it is your employer’s duty to make up the difference and ensure that your take-home after tips is at least minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. If your employer has dipped into the tip pool to pay themselves or make gifts to managers or if your Tennessee employer has required you to pay out more than 15% of your tips (especially if your take home becomes lower than TN minimum wage), you may be able to recover to unpaid wages going back three years and have court and attorney costs covered through a wage pooling lawsuits.

To pursue underpaid or unpaid wages from overtime, withheld tips, or other illegal pay practices, contact the Nashville, TN wage and hour attorneys of Higgins Firm. We have to the experience to settle fast and fair Tennessee wage cases throughout the state.

The TN legislature made an important change to the Tennessee Workman's Compensation Law. Specifically, compensation is limited in work comp cases if the employee returns to work with the pre-injury employer at the same rate of pay. However, the employee can re-open the case for more money if they lose their job within a certain amount of time from the settlement. To do so, you must file the claim for reconsideration within one year after the loss of employment. Unfortunately, our Court ruled that if the employer sells the business the one year time limit starts to run. This is true even if the employee continues to work for the new employer without any changes. This was very tricky because often employees do not even know a business has been sold or they never consider reopening a case because they are still at work making a good living. We would often have people call our office to reopen a case after a layoff or termination and they would have no idea that the time to file for reconsideration ran long ago because their company had traded hands in the past. Thankfully this problem has now been fixed.

To fix this problem the legislature has enacted the following law:

Reconsideration of a Prior Workers Compensation Claim

This law prohibits reconsideration of a prior permanent partial disability award/settlement pursuant to T.C.A. § 50-6-241 in those instances where the ownership of the employer and/or business changes but the employee continues to be employed by the successor business with the same or higher rate of pay or the employee declines an offer of employment with the same or higher rate of pay. This applies to workers compensation claims that occur on or after July 1, 2009.

If you have lost your job within the last year and had a prior workmen's compensation claim please feel free to call our Tennessee Law Office to discuss your rights. We handle work comp claims across the state. You can call us at 800.705-2121.