Torres v. Gristede's Operating Corp.

JA-731-32 (Defendant's Counter-Statement of Material Facts); JA-1327 (Zorn
Dep. 106:9-13). He owns the premises where Gristede’s main office is located.
JA 446 (Criscuolo Dep. at 264:11-13). He controls Gristede’s banking and real
estate matters. Torres, 2011 WL 4571792, at *3. He can – as he threatened to –
“shut the businesses down”, which means that he has control over the company’s
finances such that he has the power to ensure compliance with the FLSA. See,
e.g., RSR, 172 F.3d at 140. As Judge Crotty summarized, “there is no aspect of
Gristede’s operations from top to bottom and side to side which is beyond Mr.
Catsimatidis’ reach.” Torres, 2011 WL 4571792, at *3.
C. Courts Routinely Hold Liable as Employers Individuals With Far Less
Operational Control Over the Corporate Entity Than Catsimatidis.
Courts routinely hold individually liable corporate officers and managers
with far less operational control over a corporation than Catsimatidis. Again, the
critical inquiry for these courts is whether these individuals are in a position to
ensure compliance with the Act.
For example, in Yu G. Ke v. Saigon Grill, Inc., a case involving 36 restaurant
delivery workers who were paid as little as $1.60 per hour, the Southern District
held that of the four named individual defendants, three were individually liable as
employers under 203(d). Two of the three were owners of the restaurant who had
been directly involved in setting up the corporation. The third was a manager
found to have operational control, who plainly “understood the conditions under
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