Are you up to date on Ruby Tequila's lawsuit?

After the unannounced shut down of Ruby Tequila’s Mexican Kitchen locations in Amarillo and Lubbock on July 26, employees filed a class-action lawsuit against Fired Up Holding Co.

According to court documents, the plaintiffs collectively include 55 past Ruby Tequila’s employees of the one of the four locations that closed down unannounced. The report explained the plaintiffs filed a complaint against the defendants for breaking federal law.

The defendants include: Fired Up Holding Co., Richard Kevin Foote, Magdalena Baier, R Tequila Acquisition (RTA), Chalak Mitras Group, Gurdev Singh Gill and Rajeev Singh Gill.

RTA explained in court papers that around May 1, Fired Up contracted with RTA to purchase all of the restaurants operating as Ruby Tequila’s Mexican Kitchen. The lawsuit stated that based on belief, the sale was never finalized.

“The sale was not final,” Foote, the former owner of Fired Up, said. “Chalak was the company responsible for paying people, not us. They’re the one employees should be mad at.”

Chalak is a Dallas-based investment group, which sold the Ruby Tequila’s locations to Fired Up in May.

Court documents showed that beginning in May, Fired Up, Richard Kevin Foote, and Magdalena Baier began to assume responsibility of the restaurants. However, documents stated RTA and Chalak Mitras Group continued to exercise control over the restaurants up to July 26.

Gurdev Singh Gill and Rajeev Singh Gill raised a defense to the plaintiffs’ complaint. The document explained the father-son duo began a commercial real estate business.

They said the complaint against them should be dismissed because they do not run the restaurants or employ the workers.

Documents described that the defendants failed to pay the employees for their work prior to the closure of the restaurants. The form also stated that the plaintiffs did not receive any warning of the closure.

The plaintiffs said the termination has resulted in some employees being unable to pay bills and face eviction due to their unexpected unemployment.

The plaintiffs’ complaint stated that they are responding to the shut down by saying the defendants violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN).

The FLSA specifies that an employer must establish pay standards that could affect employees. The plaintiffs’ allegations in the documents described the defendant’s failure to pay all employees for what they worked in the specified time frame for their job violated the FLSA.

The WARN Act requires employers with at least 100 employees to provide a 60 day advance notice of mass layoffs.

The documents showed the plaintiffs’ claims that the defendants failed to notify the employees of the mass layoffs. Plaintiffs said they came into work on July 26, 2017, to see their employer was terminated, with no advance written notice.

In response to the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, the court documents showed that other than the name of the employees listed as plaintiffs, Kevin Richard Foote either denies or lacks sufficient knowledge to admit or deny the allegations.

One of the defendants in the lawsuit, Magdalena Baier, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on September 28. As a result, the lawsuit is temporarily on hold for at least 21 days.

Photo from: http://lubbockonline.com/business/local-news/news/2017-07-20/lubbock-amarillo-ruby-tequila-s-locations-close-managing-firm