But in an interview with the Dallas Observer in December 2011, Jaguars CEO Bryan Foster called Kennedy and attorneys like him “ambulance chasers” who were “convincing these poor dancers this is the wave of the future.” Foster said most don’t even want to be considered full-time workers. Jaguars’ attorney, Roger Albright, could not be reached. “But the clubs refuse to change their practices to comply with the law.” “We’re fighting the good fight,” says Kennedy. Kennedy has close to two dozen similar cases going at this very moment. In October a Nevada judge ruled that strippers are employees, not contractors, echoing what another judge in New York said in October 2013 when finding against Texas-based Rick’s. Just last month, a federal judge in New York told about 1,900 women who’d worked at Rick’s Cabaret in Manhattan they would be able to split $10 million, while dancers at a Springfield, Mass., strip club were awarded $1.8 million put into a settlement fund. His signature closed the case.Īnd the result is a familiar one. District Judge Reed O’Connor signed the final judgment and awarded the attorneys 33.33 percent in fees. Ramirez signed off on the settlement last month with the recommendation that the dancers attorneys collect 30 percent in fees. Court records show they came to a dollar amount in April: $2.3 million, to be deposited into a settlement fund and divvied up based on the number of weeks each dancer spent at Jaguars. In April 2013 the dancers and club owners decided it was better to settle than fight, and spent the next year hashing out an agreement. Magistrate Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez’s recap filed in court documents. (Some of the dancers would eventually drop out for unspecified reasons.) Over several months, dancers came forward to tell the same story: Not only were they not getting properly paid, but “they had to pay a fee to the clubs for each shift they worked,” according to U.S. When one of the entertainers, Claudia Rede, refused to sign the document,” says the document filed in federal court, “defendants made good on their threats and fired her on the spot.”īut dancers, current and former, did join the lawsuit, and in January 2013 it was certified as a collective action pitting about 200 women, including one house mom, against Jaguars. According to an emergency motion filed in December 2011, Jaguars’ owners told dancers to “sign a contract that waived their right to join this lawsuit” lest they lose their spot on the main stage. And, they claimed, “no performer was required, or did perform in excess of 40 hours per week.”Īlmost immediately after the three women filed their suit, things got ugly. Said Jaguars’ attorneys, the dancers were “permitted to perform … under various forms of agreements with various entities. Jaguars, like most strip clubs, disagreed, insisting they were no more than contract laborers. Moreover, Plaintiffs are required to divide their tips with and other employees who do not customarily receive tips.” Plaintiffs’ only compensation is in the form of tips from club patrons. Jaguars, said the initial complaint, “refuse to compensate them whatsoever for any hours worked. (The chain was sold, but Foster continues to operate the single Jaguars Dallas.) The women, who danced for tips shared with DJs and house moms and managers and had to pay just to get in the door, said they were employees working far more than 40-hour work weeks deserving of a minimum wage and overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. In October 2011, three women - Erica Jones, Crystal Winter and Selisha Brooks - sued the statewide chain Jaguars Gold Club and its owner, Dallas-based Bryan Foster. “The clubs are losing these lawsuits all over the country,” says Houston attorney Galvin Kennedy, who filed the initial lawsuit, “but they keep doing the same thing.” Nevertheless, he says, the settlement is “good news for these ladies.” The pile of money is the result of a three-year legal battle over that age-old question: Are strippers full-time employees deserving of proper wages or just transient part-timers - independent contractors - dancing for tips? The Dallas case, involving a strip club that the city is now trying to close altogether, ended like most of the lawsuits filed over strip-club wages in recent years - with the dancers collecting a settlement in the millions, but the club continuing to conduct business as usual. ![]() ![]() ![]() district judge in Dallas left a little something extra under the tree for some 190 women who spent time dancing in an all-nude Dallas strip club: a signed settlement worth $2.3 million, minus a sizable chunk of attorneys’ fees.
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