Jessica Biel's Au Fudge Restaurant Sued For Allegedly Stealing Tips
A new lawsuit alleges that actress Jessica Biel and her business partners at Au Fudge in Los Angeles stole more than $430,000 in tips from their employees in addition to denying them meal and rest breaks. According to court documents obtained by People magazine, nine former employees are suing Biel and other restaurant owners — Estee Stanley, Joey Gonzalez, Kimberly Muller, and Jonathan Rollo — after they failed to pay workers the 22 percent gratuity charged for private events at the kid-friendly eatery.
"Each of them had their gratuities wrongfully converted and were improperly denied meal and rest breaks, overtime compensation and earned wages under various illegal payroll practices," the lawsuit states. "Defendants charged hundreds of thousands of dollars in gratuities to private-party customers and converted said gratuities to themselves in order to pad their own pockets and deprive plaintiffs their compensation in violation of law."
Au Fudge's former director of events, Alexandra Desage, is not listed as a plaintiff on the lawsuit, but she says she did confront co-owner Jon Rollo about restaurant management pocketing staff tips. The Blast reports that Rollo dismissed Desage's concerns, saying, "I don't think you understand. Don't worry about it."
People reports that the plaintiffs are seeking $430,100 in missing gratuities and $31,549 in missed rest breaks, in addition to $1,000,000 in punitive damages. The sum of gratuities stems from industry events at the restaurant for companies like Netflix and Amazon. A Netflix event in July 2016 with a bill of $80,220.19 included $13,271.50 in "gratuity" that the employees say they never received.
Many restaurants charge a standard gratuity for large parties, but even when the tip isn't spelled out on the bill, it's important to understand what's expected of you as a customer, no matter where you are in the world. Here's the complete guide to tipping abroad: hotels, restaurants, taxis, and more.