Legal News

The AM Roundup: Baristas Ordered to Share the Love, More

By Ashby Jones

If you’re like us, you don’t give a lot of thought to the coins you drop in the jar after paying for your big old Venti Caffeinator at Starbucks. But take the contents of the jar over several years, multiply it across all the Starbucks in California, and — as the saying goes — soon you’re talking about real money.

Real money that, it turns out, can stay with shift supervisors and not all be paid out to the baristas. A California appeals court on Tuesday reversed a ruling that had ordered Starbucks to pay more than $100 million in restitution for allowing shift supervisors to share baristas’ tips.

The class-action lawsuit was brought in 2004 on behalf of more than 100,000 current and former baristas, who complained that shift supervisors were illegally getting a cut of employee tips. A state judge in San Diego ruled in favor of the baristas last year after a bench trial and awarded over $100 million. But an appeals court reversed the ruling Tuesday, saying that the original decision was improperly based and that supervisors at the nation’s largest coffeehouse chain “essentially perform the same job as baristas.” LAT.

From U.S. Attorney to Gov? Christopher Christie, the former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey who sent a parade of corrupt New Jersey politicians to prison, handily won the Republican nomination for governor on Tuesday. He’ll now fight to to dislodge the state's embattled Democratic incumbent, Jon S. Corzine. NYT; Newark Star-Ledger

Milbanker To Run New York SEC Office: George Canellos, a former federal prosecutor and current Milbank Tweed litigation partner, has been tapped to run the Securities and Exchange Commission’s New York office. Prior to joining Milbank, Canellos (Harvard, Columbia Law), 44, worked as a prosecutor in Manhattan with Robert Khuzami, the SEC’s new enforcement chief.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 03, 2009 (boomark / email).