Mo’s Fisherman Exchange Inc., the company that owns and operates Mo’s Seafood restaurants recently agreed to pay $1 million to settle a dispute with 34 former workers that claimed in a lawsuit that the restaurant chain underpaid them. However, despite the settlement, the company “did not admit to liability under the terms of the settlement of the suit.”
Mo’s Fisherman Exchange Inc., the company that owns and operates Mo’s Seafood restaurants recently agreed to pay $1 million to settle a dispute with 34 former workers that claimed in a lawsuit that the restaurant chain underpaid them. However, despite the settlement, the company “did not admit to liability under the terms of the settlement of the suit.”
The suit itself was filed back in 2015 in U.S. District Court for Maryland and accused six Mo’s Seafood restaurants and their owner, Mohammed Mancheh of “alleged minimum wage and overtime violations.” Additionally, the plaintiffs, which were all former kitchen staff workers and waiters, argued the restaurant chain took “unlawful deductions from their tips in violation of federal and state wage and hour law.”
Prior to the settlement agreement, the lawsuit was preparing to go to trial. Now that a settlement has been agreed to by all parties, though, the former workers “will get money either in payments over two years or in a lump sum based on the hours they worked and the length of their employment,” according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
While each worker included in the lawsuit is expected to receive an average of $12,800, the precise amount may vary depending on “how many hours and how long the workers were employed at a Mo’s restaurant,” according to Jessie Weber, an attorney with Brown, Goldstein & Levy. Weber, along with the nonprofit Public Justice Center, originally filed the suit back in 2015.
When commenting on the settlement, Weber said:
“It’s a significant amount of money for people who made not much more than that in the course of a year. We hope the settlement serves as a message to Mo’s and to others out there that there is a real price tag to not paying their workers. We hope there is a deterrent effect.”
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Andrew Dansicker, an attorney for Mo’s Seafood, said the company decided to settle to avoid the added expenses of going to trial. He said:
“The cost of having a three- to six-week trial plus appeals would have been enormous, and the settlement was for a fraction of what the potential liability could have been.”
What do the plaintiffs think of the settlement agreement? Well, one former employee, Erick Rivera, said:
“I’m pleased that we will receive some justice and most of the back wages that we are owed. All restaurants should pay their workers in accordance with the law, including all the overtime so many of us work hard to earn. Workers, particularly those who have come from other countries, should not be intimidated and should report wrongdoing for the good of everyone.”
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