Notoriety Group Failed to Properly Pay Workers, Lawsuit Alleges

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Notoriety Group LLC and three individual owners face a proposed collective action that alleges the event management company has failed to pay certain workers in accordance with state and federal law.

The 18-page case alleges the defendants, whose company has managed the VIP SkyDeck tables at New York’s Electric Zoo Festival since 2015, have violated both the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law by failing to pay workers at either the proper minimum wage rate or the tip-credit rate plus the full amount of their tips. Instead, the workers were paid by the defendants only in tips, some of which were wrongfully withheld by Notoriety Group, the suit alleges.

The plaintiff, a Queens, New York resident, worked for Notoriety Group as a server at the Electric Zoo music festival in 2019 and 2021 without being paid any minimum wages or spread-of-hours premiums, the lawsuit alleges. According to the suit, the plaintiff worked roughly 12 hours per day for three days in 2019 and 12 hours per day for two days in 2021.

Instead of being paid the minimum hourly wage and proper spread-of-hours premiums for working more than 10 hours in one shift, the plaintiff and similarly situated workers were paid only in tips and required to participate in an invalid tip-sharing scheme whereby some of their tips were withheld, the lawsuit alleges. Per the case, the defendants withheld all of the plaintiff’s cash tips for her work at the 2021 Electric Zoo festival and for a private event in Miami called “House of Love” on New Year’s Eve.

“As the manager and owners of Notoriety Group, Defendants should not have taken a share of Plaintiff’s, and all similarly situated individuals’, tips,” the complaint alleges, claiming that the tip-sharing scheme was neither “customary” nor “reasonable.”

The lawsuit further alleges that the defendants failed to keep proper records regarding their apparent tip-sharing scheme as required by law and did not post in a “conspicuous place” notices about wage and hour laws, tip appropriations and illegal deductions.

Moreover, the plaintiff and other workers were paid at a rate lower than the appropriate tip-credited hourly rate, the suit says.

The case also claims Notoriety Group failed to accurately state employees’ gross wages on their pay statements, provide proper meal and rest breaks, accurately track workers’ hours, provide wage statements in accordance with the New York Labor Law and give workers notice of their rate of pay, payday and other information required under state law.

Finally, the lawsuit claims that the plaintiff and other workers were not paid at their time-and-a-half overtime rates for hours worked in excess of 40 each week.

The plaintiff looks to represent non-exempt employees—including servers, bottle girls, bussers, hosts and other “tipped” workers—employed by the defendant at any time within the three years before the suit was filed.

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