Judge awards nearly $750K to Belleville restaurant workers in pay dispute with bosses
A federal judge has awarded almost $750,000 to 12 former employees of El Gordito restaurant in Belleville for back wages and damages that the U.S. Department of Labor said was due to them.
The Labor Department filed a federal lawsuit against the business and its owners last year alleging that they did not pay their employees minimum wage or overtime over a three-year period, from May 22, 2021, to May 21, 2023.
El Gordito operated at 2630 Mascoutah Ave. in Belleville from 2010 until it closed in 2023.
The former owners, Patricia and Samuel Gonzalez Lara, could not be reached for comment.
Judge J. Phil Gilbert of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois on Feb. 4 granted the Labor Department’s motion for default judgment against them, ordering them to pay $746,572 in back wages and damages because they failed to file any motion or response to the lawsuit. They also did not retain an attorney.
Court records state that the owners were served with a summons for the lawsuit at a home in Noblesville, Indiana, on July 8, 2024.
The award includes $229,018 in overtime pay, $144,267 in minimum wages and $373,286 in liquidated damages.
Kelly Lovejoy, a wage and hour investigator in the Labor Department’s St. Louis office, worked on the case and calculated the amount of back wages due to employees. She stated in a court filing that her findings in the investigation included the following:
The owners did not consistently pay hourly wages to four full-time servers and one part-time server.
They did not pay overtime to 11 employees. Servers regularly worked 42 to 48 hours in a workweek, except for one part-time server. Other employees regularly worked 62 hours.
Three employees were not listed on payroll and paid in cash payments.
Court records include only the former workers’ first initials and last names, citing privacy reasons.
Martina Sherman, the attorney representing the U.S. Department of Labor in the case, deferred comment about its conclusion last week to the agency’s Office of Public Affairs. A spokesman from the Office of Public Affairs said Friday no further information would be provided.
