Seven plaintiffs, representing front- and back-of-house employees, sued Pio Pio NYC, Inc. and eleven related entities for alleged violations of the FLSA and New York Labor Law. The suit seeks damages for former and current employees employed within six years prior to the filing of the complaint.
In a memorandum opinion and order filed April 20, 2026, Judge Furman held that the plaintiffs satisfied the "modest factual showing" required for conditional certification. The court found that affidavits from ten plaintiffs and identifications of over twenty additional affected workers demonstrated a common policy or plan violating the law across six locations.
The defendants did not dispute that the restaurants function as a single, integrated enterprise. Judge Furman noted that the entities share names, logos, menu selections, principals, liquor licenses, websites, social media presences, employees, and supplies.
The court approved the plaintiffs' proposed notice and "consent to sue" form but narrowed the scope of the collective. While plaintiffs sought notice to all non-exempt employees for a six-year period, the court limited the "Covered Employees" to those employed within the three-year period prior to the filing of the complaint.
Judge Furman denied the plaintiffs' categorical request for equitable tolling of the statute of limitations. The court ruled that challenges to the timeliness of individual plaintiffs' actions will be entertained at a later date, allowing notice to be sent to the larger class of prospective members.
The order requires defendants to post copies of the notice and opt-in forms in conspicuous non-public locations at their places of business. Notices must be posted in both English and Spanish unless the parties show cause for English-only distribution.
Defendants must produce an Excel file containing the names, titles, compensation rates, dates of employment, last known mailing addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers of all Covered Employees within fourteen days.
To handle returned mailings, defendants must provide the Social Security Numbers of recipients within five days of a request by plaintiffs' counsel. Plaintiffs' counsel must use these numbers solely for skip-tracing to identify new addresses and destroy all copies once the analysis is complete.