Rooneys' Palm Beach Kennel Club must pay poker dealers $133,206, judge rules
By GEORGE BENNETT

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

A federal judge has ordered the Palm Beach Kennel Club to pay 18 poker dealers a total of $133,206 in back wages and damages after a jury ruled in March that the club illegally set their base pay below the minimum wage.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James Hopkins ordered the Kennel Club to pay the dealers between $852 and $16,741 apiece. Half the money is for back pay and half is for liquidated damages. Hopkins has not yet awarded attorneys' fees, which plaintiffs claim are more than $100,000.

Kennel Club President Pat Rooney Jr. declined to comment, except to say the club is considering an appeal.

The jury found that the Kennel Club had violated a portion of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act that allows restaurants and other businesses to pay employees below the minimum wage if the employees "customarily and regularly receive tips."

Dealers get tips from card players, so the club claimed a "tip credit" and set the dealers' base pay at about $3 below minimum wage. When the dealers got tips, they had to put 5 percent into a "tip pool," with that money distributed to cashiers, hosts and floor supervisors.

The dealers objected, saying the floor supervisors did not interact with customers enough to qualify for the tip pool.

The jury agreed with the dealers that including the floor supervisors made the entire tip pool invalid, and therefore the dealers were entitled to the extra $3 an hour.

Even with the base pay below the minimum wage, the Kennel Club said in court filings that the dealers' tips pushed their average pay above $22 an hour.

In awarding damages on top of the back pay, Hopkins ruled that the Kennel Club demonstrated "an honest intention" to determine the requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, but the club's conclusion that it could include the floor supervisors in the tip pool was not "objectively reasonable."