$1.25 M Settlement Approved for Outback Steakhouse Servers

St. Paul, MN: On August 30, 2011, the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota granted final approval of a $1.25 million settlement between OS Restaurant Services, Inc. and the approximately 1,200 servers who have worked at Outback Steakhouse restaurants in Minnesota.

The settlement resolves the employment class action filed against Outback Steakhouse in April 2010, which alleged that Outback unlawfully required servers to share their gratuities with bussers, hosts and hostesses in violation of the Minnesota Fair Labor Standards Act’s strict prohibitions on employer-run and mandated tip pools.

Plaintiffs’ Counsel stated, “We are very pleased with the settlement, which gives back to servers a large percentage of the gratuities that the lawsuit alleges Outback required servers to pay into the tip pool.”