Jacky's Galaxie Providence, Inc., doing business as Jacky's Waterplace & Sushi Bar, and Kin Wah Ko. 200 Exchange St., Providence, Rhode Island. to pay $600K in back wages, damages and penalties to 104 employees denied minimum wage, overtime pay

Providence restaurant, owner to pay $567K in back wages, damages to 104 employees denied minimum wage, overtime pay

Jacky’s Waterplace & Sushi Bar, Kin Wah Koh, to also pay $50k in penalties

 

Date of Action: Sept. 23, 2016

Type of Action: Complaint, Consent Judgment and Order

Name of Defendants: Jacky's Galaxie Providence, Inc., doing business as Jacky's Waterplace & Sushi Bar, and Kin Wah Ko. 200 Exchange St., Providence, Rhode Island.

Allegations: An investigation by the Providence Area Office of U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division found that the defendants violated the minimum wage, overtime and recordkeeping requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Specifically, the investigation found multiple instances in which defendants:

• Paid servers, bartenders, cooks, bussers and dishwashers at rates less than the federal minimum wage.
• Failed to pay overtime pay to both tipped and non-tipped employees who worked more than 40 hours in a workweek.
• Required servers and bartenders to pay for breakages, customer walkouts and ordering errors out of their tips, reducing their pay to below the federal minimum wage.
• Paid a flat salary to non-exempt employees regardless of the number of hours they worked each week, creating an overtime violation when these employees worked more than 40 hours in a week.
• Took a set percentage of servers' and bartenders' tips to pay other employees.
• Required employees to work without pay at charity events.
• Failed to keep accurate records showing the hours worked each day by employees and the total hours worked during each workweek.

Quote: "These employees were denied their legally required rates of pay. While they will now be compensated, these violations should not have occurred in the first place. Underpaying workers not only harms those workers for whom each week's pay is a vital necessity, it also undercuts those businesses that play by the rules and pay their workers correctly," said Don Epifano, the Wage and Hour Division's assistant district director in Providence. "The resolution of this case sends a clear message — we will continue to use every enforcement tool available to us to ensure workers take home every penny they have rightfully earned."

Resolution: The Labor Department has obtained a consent judgment ordering the defendants to:

• Pay $283,977 in back wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages to the 104 affected employees.
• Engage a qualified independent consultant with FLSA knowledge and experience to create a system to ensure that all businesses owned by defendant Ko will comply with the FLSA in the future; the consultant will on a biannual basis make available to the Wage and Hour Division, upon its request, reports of any violations and corrective actions taken.
• Hold biannual meetings at all company locations, including Providence, North Providence, Bristol, and Cumberland to inform employees of their FLSA rights.
• Train all managers and assistant managers to comply with the FLSA.
• Amend employee handbooks to include a section on practices prohibited by the FLSA.
• Pay $50,000 in civil money penalties to the Labor Department.

Senior Trial Attorney Susan Salzberg and Wage and Hour Counsel Merle Hyman of the Boston regional office of the Solicitor provided legal services in support of this enforcement action.

Background: As the result of separate investigations by the Wage and Hour Division the defendants previously paid a total of $80,350 in back wages and liquidated damages to 25 employees at the North Providence, Bristol, and Cumberland locations and also paid $13,750 in civil money penalties to the Labor Department for minimum wage and overtime violations.

The FLSA requires that covered, non-exempt workers be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for all hours worked, plus overtime at one and one-half times their regular wages for hours worked beyond 40 per week. Employers also must maintain accurate time and payroll records. Employers are prohibited from retaliating against workers who exercise their rights under the law.

For more information about federal wage laws administered by the Wage and Hour Division, or to file a complaint, call the agency's toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243). All services are free and confidential. Information also is available at http://www.dol.gov/whd/.

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Speeding motorcyclist killed in high-speed collision with Expo Line train in downtown LA

An investigator stands near a motorcycle in downtown Los Angeles after a crash that killed the motorcyclist on Monday, Sept. 26, 2016. (KABC)

By ABC7.com staff
Monday, September 26, 2016 07:44AM
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A motorcyclist died early Monday morning after a collision involving an Expo Line train in downtown Los Angeles, authorities said.

The motorcycle was traveling at a high-rate of speed when the collision happened shortly before 1:30 a.m. at the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Flower Street, according to Lt. Matthew King of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

The light-rail train came to a stop at Flower and 30th streets, several blocks away from the crash site, the lieutenant said.

The deceased cyclist was not immediately identified.

After the collision, the intersection was closed and Expo Line service was halted at the scene. Busses that circumvented the location were provided for passengers, the sheriff's department said.

The incident was also being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department's Central Traffic Division.

City News Service contributed to this report.

At least 28 people were injured, one seriously, when two New Jersey Transit buses collided in the Lincoln Tunnel Monday morning.

2 New Jersey Transit buses collide in the Lincoln Tunnel; at least 28 injured

Eyewitness News
Updated 17 mins ago
NEW YORK (WABC) -- At least 28 people were injured, one seriously, when two New Jersey Transit buses collided in the Lincoln Tunnel Monday morning.

All lanes in the center tube were temporarily closed as a result of the crash.

Authorities say a bus on the 127 line from Ridgefield to the Port Authority Bus Terminal with 33 passengers on board rear-ended a bus on the 128 line from North Hudson Park in Fairview to the Port Authority just before 9 a.m.

The second bus was full, with 56 passengers on board. The two drivers brings the total people involved to 91.

Both buses were removed by 10:25 a.m., but motorists heading into New York City faced major delays.

Michelle Charlesworth spoke with one of the passengers:


Port Authority Superintendent Michael Fedorko said a bus in the left lane made a quick shift into the right lane, and the bus coming up behind did not have time to stop.

Ten passengers were taken to area hospitals, with the most significant injuries being a broken jaw and broken arm. One of the passengers had a preexisting brain injury that resulted in a seizure.

Officials say 34 people refused medical attention.

Three summonses were issued to the driver in the first bus for improper lane change, careless driving and unsafe lane change.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection v. Trainer Custom Chemical, —- F. Supp. 3rd — (2016), 2016 WL 4525451: current owner of contaminated property is not liable under Section 107(a)(1) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) for cleanup costs incurred prior to ownership.

Current Owner Is Not Liable Under Cercla For Cleanup Costs Incurred Prior to Ownership


Source: http://www.lexology.com, September 21, 2016
By: Laurie J. Sands, Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti LLP

In a recent case, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection v. Trainer Custom Chemical, —- F. Supp. 3rd — (2016), 2016 WL 4525451, the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found that a current owner of contaminated property is not liable under Section 107(a)(1) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) for cleanup costs incurred prior to ownership. Trainer limits current owner liability under CERCLA to only those costs incurred after the owner takes title to the contaminated site.

In 2012, Defendant Trainer Custom Chemical (“TCC”) purchased a contaminated site with knowledge of the existing contamination. During demolition of the site in 2013 and 2014, TCC uncovered piping and storage tanks that allegedly continued to leak. In 2015, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (“PADEP”) filed suit against TCC and its principals under CERCLA seeking a determination of liability and the recovery of costs it incurred in cleaning up the site, both before and after TCC’s ownership. The Defendants did not dispute that TCC was a responsible party under CERCLA as the current owner of the site and, thus, TCC was responsible to remediate the contamination at the site. Rather, the question for the court was whether TCC was also liable for response costs incurred by the government prior to the time TCC took ownership of the site. As such, the court had to decide whether there is a “temporal” limitation on the liability of a current owner under CERCLA. That is, is a current owner’s liability under CERCLA limited to only those costs incurred after it takes title to a site? The government argued that the current owner is liable for all costs incurred in cleaning up the site, including those incurred prior to ownership.

As there were no cases addressing this issue in the Third Circuit, the Trainer court examined a Ninth Circuit case, California Department of Toxic Substances Control v. Hearthside Residential Corp., 613 F.3d 910 (9th Cir. 2010), where the court faced this exact question. The Ninth Circuit, stating that the purpose of CERCLA is to have responsible parties pay to remediate contaminated sites, held that ownership status is determined at the time of the cleanup and not when the cost recovery suit is filed. The Ninth Circuit also found that since the statute of limitations under CERCLA begins to run at the time of the cleanup, CERCLA intended the owner at that time to be responsible for cleanup costs incurred, and not a subsequent owner.

The court in Trainer agreed with the Ninth Circuit, explaining that if current ownership for purposes of CERCLA liability under Section 107(a)(1) was not based on when the owner took title to the contaminated site, a responsible party could sell remediated property to a new owner and, if a cost recovery action is later filed, the new owner would then bear full responsibility for all cleanup costs, including those incurred prior to its ownership. The court noted that although CERCLA imposes strict liability, it does not impose limitless liability. The court could not abide the government recovering costs from a party that neither caused a release nor owned the facility when it was remediated.

Given the ruling in Trainer, a party involved in a CERCLA cost recovery action as a current owner of contaminated property should carefully analyze when the costs at issue were incurred. It should be noted that the PADEP has filed a motion to certify the decision for an interlocutory appeal to the Third Circuit.

EPA announced it has reached a $5.5 million settlement with 173 companies throughout the U.S. that contributed to the PCB contamination in Wake County

EPA names 173 companies in $5.5 million settlement over PCB contamination in Wake County


Source: http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org, September 24, 2016
By: Lisa Sorg

For more than 10 years, it has been forbidden to eat a single fish from Brier Creek Reservoir in Wake County. Areas downstream, such as Brier Creek and Little Brier Creek, were also off-limits. That prohibition extended for nearly 30 miles southwest, to Crabtree Creek, Lake Crabtree, on down into parts of the Neuse River where, state officials advised, people shouldn’t eat more than one meal of fish per month.

The reason: PCBs and dioxins, cancer-causing compounds, were in oil that had leaked from Ward Transformer Company, which manufactured, rehabbed and sold electrical transformers from 1964 to 2006. From 11 acres just north of the Raleigh-Durham International Airport, Ward’s pollution drained into the soil and water, including tributaries that fed some of the most popular waterways in the state. Fish became contaminated, although people, some of whom rely on fishing for their, still eat them.

PCBs were widely used a coolant fluid in electrical equipment from 1929 to 1977. Their manufacture was banned in 1979, but weren’t completely phased out in industry until the early 1980s. Dioxins are formed when PCBs burn.

On Friday, the EPA announced it has reached a $5.5 million settlement with 173 companies throughout the U.S. that contributed to the contamination. They include major corporations such as Union Carbide and US Steel; utilities from San Antonio to Philadelphia to New York and South Carolina; and North Carolina state government like the Department of Agriculture, UNC Chapel Hill and NC State University. At some point, each of the 173 sent electrical transformers to Ward.

The settlement is the latest chapter in a cumbersome, expensive and decades-long history at Ward Transformer. It shows the bureaucratic hurdles and delays that beset the Superfund program.

Shortly before the EPA banned the manufacture of PCBs, in 1978 state and federal regulators first discovered suspicious samples in soil and the stormwater lagoon on Ward property, plus more contamination downstream. (Ward Transformer also became famous that year when two men in a tanker truck sprayed an estimated 30,000 gallons of PCB-laced oil along rural roadsides in 14 counties, The News & Observer reported. Buck Ward, the company president and one of four men convicted in the dumping, served nine months in federal prison in 1982.

From 1994 to 1997, the state found more contamination, which had spread to nearby properties.In 2003, Ward Transformer became a federal Superfund site, and in 2004 the EPA deemed the contamination so dangerous as to warrant a “time-critical removal action,” which was supposed to happen in three to six months.

Yet not until 2007 did excavation begin of 400,000 cubic yards of dirt. — enough to fill 100 train cars.

Another decade and $82 million in, the 173 potentially responsible parties will be required to pay for the cleanup plan that was chosen in September 2008. That includes excavating PCB-contaminated soil and sediment and monitoring of sediment and aquatic life to ensure cleanup goals are being met.

When will it be safe to eat the fish again? In Brier Creek Reservoir, it will take at least another five years.