A lawsuit filed by two former employees against a popular buffet restaurant chain in Milpitas, California, alleges severe labor violations. On September 5, 2024, Haifeng Li and Dayong Wang filed a complaint in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, against CA Milpitas Buffet Inc., SJ Milpitas Buffet Inc., and several individual defendants.
The plaintiffs, Haifeng Li and Dayong Wang, accuse the defendants—CA Milpitas Buffet Inc., SJ Milpitas Buffet Inc., Shun Zheng, Bin Zheng, Min Qin Fu, and others—of numerous labor law violations. According to the complaint, the plaintiffs worked as waitstaff at the buffet restaurants but were not compensated for their labor. The allegations include failure to pay minimum wage and overtime wages as mandated by California's Labor Code and Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Wage Order 5-2001. "Defendants employed Plaintiffs and did not provide them with wage statements that listed all hours worked and/or payroll deductions," states the complaint.
Li and Wang allege they worked five to six days a week from 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM without receiving any base pay. Instead, they were paid only through customer gratuities left on credit card payments. The plaintiffs also claim they had to sign documents falsely stating they received payments for certain hours at specific rates. If their gratuities exceeded the gross pay amount on their paystubs, they would receive the difference in cash; if not, they had to pay the difference back to the defendants.
The lawsuit further accuses the defendants of failing to provide off-duty meal periods and rest breaks as required by law. The plaintiffs assert that during meal breaks, they were required to perform side tasks such as cleaning vegetables and preparing food. They also claim that rest periods were never provided despite working long hours each day.
In addition to these claims, Li and Wang allege that upon terminating their employment in February 2024, they were not paid all earned wages within the legally required timeframe. They seek various forms of relief including compensatory damages for unpaid wages and overtime compensation, waiting time penalties under Labor Code §203, statutory penalties for inaccurate wage statements under Labor Code §226(e), liquidated damages under Labor Code §1194.2 for unpaid minimum wages plus interest thereon.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Tomas E. Margain from Justice at Work Law Group LLP and Xiaoming Liu. The case is being overseen by Judge M. Arechiga under Case ID 24CV446696.