Federal Court Rejects Faculty Club Lawsuit, Wait Staff Allegations Return to State Court

The U.S. District Court of Massachusetts denied Harvard’s request last week to try a class-action lawsuit in federal court filed against the University by the wait staff at Loeb House and the Harvard Faculty Club.

The lawsuit, filed last September, centers on a surcharge of around 18 to 22 percent added to all food and beverage bills at Loeb House and the Faculty Club. Harvard uses the extra revenue for operating expenses instead of giving it to the wait staff, a practice that the complaint alleges violates the Massachusetts “Tip Law.”

The law states that service employees must be the sole recipients of “a fee that a patron or other consumer would reasonably expect to be given to wait staff employees.”

“If you want to add a charge to the bill and not pay it to the wait staff, you just have to let the consumer know,” said Shannon E. Liss-Riordan ’90, an attorney for the workers.

Harvard argued that because the wait staff is unionized–they are members of UNITE HERE! Local 26–its relationship with the University is governed by federal collective bargaining laws and thus the case should be tried in a federal court.

Regardless, Harvard asserts that the surcharge is explicitly not a tip or gratuity covered under the tip law.

“The Faculty Club included a surcharge, not a tip or gratuity or service charge, which was used to defray the expenses of the Faculty Club,” wrote a University spokesperson in an email to The Crimson.

Harvard also asserts that the wages and benefits it provides to the wait staff are highly competitive.

“Faculty Club employees are paid more than double the average wage for restaurant industry workers and receive benefits that include health care, access to child care, four weeks paid vacation and tuition assistance,” the spokesperson wrote.

The lawsuit will now return to the state court to be tried under state law.

Liss-Riordan said she is confident that the case is clear enough that it will be settled out of court before coming to trial. This was the case in a similar suit she filed against the Harvard Club of Boston.

“The [state] law is just strikingly clear on this point,” she said.

She said that as an alumna of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School, she was especially disappointed that in her assessment Harvard does not follow the tip law.

“But now I’m hopeful that Harvard will do the right thing, recognize they made a mistake, pay back the wait staff, and move forward,” she said.

—Staff writer Christine Y. Cahill can be reached at christinecahill@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @cycahill16.