Judge Rejects Restaurant Servers Class Action Accord as Coercive

Turning Point Holding Co. and servers who say the restaurant operator denied them fair pay for untipped side work must revamp a planned $800,000 settlement after a federal judge in Pennsylvania rejected the current deal as “coercive.”

The agreement’s terms—which allow class members to recover under state wage-and-hour laws only if they also choose to opt-in as Fair Labor Standards Act plaintiffs—are “neither fair nor reasonable,” the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said Thursday.

Turning Point and the settling servers “would tie the choice to opt in to the right to participate in a class settlement,” ...