Sephora Dodges Wage Theft Class Action Lawsuit but Still Accountable for Individual Claims

Sephora, the cosmetic retail giant, recently won a small legal battle that enables them to temporarily dodge financial responsibility for employee wage theft . The charges alleged wage theft through not giving mandatory breaks and not properly paying overtime. The court of appeals affirmed the district court’s ruling and the class action phase of the lawsuit has been dismissed. However, Sephora is still far from escaping financial liability and they are likely to pay out a lot more in the long run.

The case was not dismissed on its merits. The problem was that everyone involved in a class action lawsuit needs to suffer the same or a substantially similar injury from the defendant. In this case, not all of the plaintiffs had enough in common to warrant a class action lawsuit to allow the case to proceed. From here, the plaintiffs can either file their cases individually or reassemble into smaller class actions to recover the damages owed.

This judgment by the court is just a small roadblock for the employees in their pursuit to recover the money they have earned and may delay the time it is going to take the wage theft victims to recover the compensation they deserve.

If you are a Sephora employee and believe you are the victim of wage theft, contact our New York City wage theft attorneys at Hepworth, Gershbaum & Roth, PLLC today. Schedule your free initial consultation by calling us at 212-545-1199 or you can contact us online. Consultations are confidential.