Taco Bell Class Action Lawsuit

A Franchise Lawsuit Lawyer Sues Taco Bell For Violating Overtime

The first of a two-part Taco Bell class action lawsuit focused on benefits. The second part focused on injuries. This class action suit was originally filed in 2021 by an individual former Taco Bell employee. The initial lawsuit, however, was joined with other similar hourly wage and hour suits against Taco Bell in early 2021.

Taco Bell Class Action Lawsuit

The second lawsuit, which was filed in June 2021, included claims regarding benefits and injuries. Among these were claims for failure to provide paid time off, failure to provide accrued vacation time, and not paying employees in accordance with the state’s labor laws.

Also among these claims were charges that Taco Bell owed wages to its employees, including overtime pay, and penalties for failure to maintain ergonomics in work stations. Both administrative remedies and Class Action suit were filed against Taco Bell. Both administrative and class actions are federal claims.

After the second lawsuit, the District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied summary judgment as to both administrative and class action claims.

At this time, a three-judge District Court panel heard arguments concerning a motion to dismiss the complaint. That motion was denied on the basis that the complaint properly alleged a violation of the Florida statute. Specifically, the claim required that the “classes” of employees be provided with a “labor certification” which was not supported by either an ADA or FLSA provision. According to the panel, if that provision did apply, then the complaint was properly dismissed.

The three-judge panel was not including any of the class members in its decision, therefore creating what is known as an “inter-branching” of the Florida statute.

Inter-branching allows the same regulations to apply to Florida state and local regulation of class-action lawsuits, as well as those of federal court. If one court fails to construe the regulation properly, other courts cannot interpret the same regulation.

Because the three-judge panel failed to include all of the class members in its decision, the Florida statute was found to be vague as applied to Taco Bell’s Overtime Rule.

Because class members were not given proper notice of the lawsuit, violations of the law were found to have occurred. Therefore, both the Overtime Rule and the Florida statute were declared invalid. Plaintiffs had been required to reimburse their damages through Class Action lawsuit funds, but will now be forced to repay their attorneys, who are paid by the class action settlement checks they receive.

Taco Bell was one of the largest fast food restaurant chains in the country, so they are quite wealthy.

This does not justify or excuse the company’s negligence, since this is a matter of business, not of justice. It is also worth remembering that many of the same people who will be injured due to this corporate blunder, are also the people who will stand up and testify against their former co-workers during class action lawsuits.

These same people will bring their grievances to the courtroom, thus putting a tremendous strain on already overburdened attorney’s departments. For these reasons, I think it is in the best interest of all who have been injured to seek counsel from an experienced litigation lawyer who has experience working with the franchisor’s and other large corporations to help them navigate the complex waters of personal injury lawsuits.