The city will pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit that claims a group of club employees, mostly waiters and bartenders, were consistently denied their tips and overtime pay from 2007 to 2013. The employees originally sought around $4 million, and in a show of good will, the city council is planning a reception at the golf club for the employees.
The city will pay $1 million to a group of former and current employees at the Rye (N.Y.) Golf Club to settle a class action lawsuit that stemmed from allegations of unpaid tips and stolen wages, the Westchester, N.Y., Journal News reported.
The city council unanimously voted to approve the terms of the agreement at a December 21 meeting. “This settlement puts the last remnant of the Rye Golf Club scandal behind us,” Rye City Mayor Joseph Sack said at the meeting.
The suit was filed in December 2013, shortly after former manager Scott Yandrasevich resigned from the city-owned golf club. The suit claims that a group of employees, mostly waiters and bartenders, were consistently denied their tips and overtime pay from 2007 to 2013, the News reported.
The employees had originally sought around $4 million, but the risks of continued litigation led them to settle, said attorney Alison Mangiatordi. “The city stepped up and came to us with a number that we thought was fair,” Mangiatordi said. “We won’t get the workers every penny, but a settlement is a settlement.”
Yandrasevich, who was sentenced in August 2015 to one-to-three years in state prison after pleading guilty to three felony charges, used several shell companies and false invoices to steal $271,120 from the golf club from 2007 to 2012, the News reported.
“The city was also a victim of Yandrasevich’s malfeasance, but we wanted to make this right with the employees,” Councilman Terrance McCartney said this week. “We wanted to make them whole while also mitigating our own damages.”
In a show of good will, McCartney said, the city council is planning a reception at the golf club for the employees this summer, the News reported.
“No one is terribly happy, but we want to move on in a positive way,” McCartney said. “We want to bury the hatchet.”
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.