LAWSUIT FILED ON BEHALF OF ALL PANDA EXPRESS GENERAL MANAGERS NATIONWIDE
KHAN a/k/a DOMINIC KUDO FILES COLLECTIVE AND CLASS ACTION OVERTIME PAY LAWSUIT
On January 26, 2009, Khan a/k/a Dominic Kudo filed a collective and class action overtime pay lawsuit in Federal Court on behalf of himself and all current and former general managers nationwide of the popular Panda Express fast food Chinese restaurants to recover unpaid overtime. The suit alleges that rather than obey the federal wage laws enacted as part of the “New Deal” during the Great Depression, Panda Express instead deliberately schemed to misclassify its workers as “exempt” employees, so as to avoid paying overtime for the long hours of non-managerial, non-exempt tasks that it required its general managers to work. “Every American worker is entitled to an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work. These are workers with families to feed,” said plaintiffs’ attorney J. David MacCartney, Jr., Esq. of Feerick Lynch MacCartney, PLLC.
“Employers must not be permitted to avoid their obligation to pay workers for all of the hours worked by ‘misclassifying’ them as managers,” MacCartney added. Plaintiffs seek unpaid overtime wages and “liquidated” or double damages as allowed under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §201 et seq. Mary E. Marzolla, Esq., co-counsel to Mr. MacCartney on the suit, commented: “No worker should be cheated out of their hard earned pay. This action simply seeks to put money back into the pockets of the workers who earned it.”
The suit is named Khan Kudo v. Panda Restaurant Group, Inc., and Panda Express, Inc.
Click to read a copy of the Collective and Class Action Complaint (the document that sets forth the plaintiffs' claims).
For more information about this action or if you have information you would like to share, please contact Mary E. Marzolla, Esq. at Feerick Lynch MacCartney PLLC, 96 South Broadway, South Nyack, NY 10960, telephone (845) 353-2000; 
; website: http://www.flmpllc.com
WHO IS KHAN a/k/a DOMINIC KUDO?
KHAN a/k/a DOMINIC KUDO: STANDING UP FOR WORKERS DENIED OVERTIME PAY
Khan a/k/a Dominic Kudo faithfully worked for Panda Express as a General Manager for 10 years. Like all workers in America, Khan Kudo deserved to be paid fairly for his work by his employer, Panda Express. Instead, he was never paid a dime for any of the hundreds of overtime hours he worked because Panda Express classifies its “General Managers” as “salaried/exempt” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Although he was called a “General Manager”, Khan spent most of his 40+ hour work week performing the same tasks as the hourly associates including preparing food, taking and filling customers’ orders, taking inventory, receiving customers’ money in payment for their food and making appropriate change, removing trash, and cleaning.
Virtually every aspect of Khan’s day was controlled by Panda’s area managers and corporate policies, including the following:
- the days and hours of each restaurant’s operations;
- the number of key sets for each store and who may possess the key sets;
- store layouts;
- changes to the store layout;
- selection, presentation, and pricing of food selections;
- hiring outside vendors and suppliers;
- promotions;
- payroll budgets;
- recruiting, hiring and staffing levels;
- salary levels;
- employee schedules; and,
- employee discipline and termination.
Khan is one of over 1100 General Managers employed by Panda Express at its restaurants nationwide. In 2009, Panda Restaurant Group, Inc. reportedly projects to bring the company's restaurant total to well over 1,200 and in excess of $1 billion in annual revenues. Such success in these times is made possible by faithful workers like Kahn. He simply wants to be paid for the time he has worked.
The FLSA is a federal law that protects all workers like Khan. The FLSA requires that all non-exempt workers must be paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours in a week. The overtime rate must be one-and-one-half times your normal rate of pay. The FLSA also prohibits the overtime requirement from being waived, even by agreement between the worker and his/her boss.
Under the FLSA, it is illegal for your boss to force or intimidate you into giving up your overtime pay. It also is illegal for your employer to fire or discriminate against you for filing a complaint about an FLSA overtime violation. Your boss can be criminally charged for violating the overtime provisions of the FLSA.
Khan is standing up for himself and other workers like him.
The suit is named Khan Kudo v. Panda Restaurant Group, Inc., and Panda Express, Inc.
Click to read a copy of the Collective and Class Action Complaint (the document that sets forth the plaintiffs' claims).
For more information about this action or if you have information you would like to share, please contact Mary E. Marzolla, Esq. at Feerick Lynch MacCartney PLLC, 96 South Broadway, South Nyack, NY 10960, telephone (845) 353-2000; ; website: http://www.flmpllc.com
