(Photo by Steel Wool)

Farmers Restaurant Group, which owns several popular D.C.-area restaurants, has agreed to pay $1.49 million to settle a class action lawsuit by employees who say the company underpaid them and violated the District’s paid sick leave law.

The restaurant group owns Founding Farmers, Farmers Fishers Bakers, and Farmers & Distillers, all popular restaurants in the D.C. area. Employees in the city claim they were not given adequate sick leave in accordance with a 2014 D.C. sick leave law, which requires companies to provide between three and seven paid sick days a year. Bloomberg Law was the first to report on the settlement.

Employees in D.C. and Maryland also said they were being paid below the tipped minimum wage, even when they were doing untipped work like buying their uniforms, attending pre-shift meetings, and performing “side work” like cleaning up at night and bundling silverware.

In the settlement, Farmers Restaurant Group denies all these allegations and stipulates that the agreement is not an admission of any wrongdoing.

According to a motion filed in D.C. District court and the settlement document, the eligible plaintiffs include 962 current and former employees who worked at one of five area restaurant locations—Founding Farmers in Montgomery County, Founding Farmers D.C., Farmers & Distillers, Farmers Fishers Bakers, and Founding Farmers Tysons—between June 7, 2014 and July 20, 2018. Of the workers, 690 are in the D.C. class and 272 in the Maryland class.

Managers for D.C. restaurants in the Farmers Restaurant Group were vocal opponents of a ballot initiative this summer that would have eliminated the tipped minimum wage ($3.33 at the time, now $3.89) and obliged restaurants to pay their employees the full minimum wage with tips on top.

One of the main arguments proponents gave for Initiative 77 was that it would eliminate wage theft—a practice many critics of the initiative said was uncommon in the city. Advocates are already pointing to this settlement as proof that wage theft among restaurant owners is more common than they would like you to believe. D.C. voters approved the initiative at the ballot box in June, but a majority of councilmembers have co-introduced legislation to repeal it.

The legal agreement between Farmers Restaurant Group and employees still has to be approved by a U.S. District Court judge.

Farmers Restaurant Group Settlement by Natalie Delgadillo on Scribd