Former employees of Ruby Tequila’s and Fired Up Holdings in Lubbock and Amarillo filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court.
Twisted Spigot and Ruby Tequila’s restaurant locations were closed in July. However, Twisted Spigot was not mentioned by name in the lawsuit. The attorneys for the employees indicated more lawsuits could be coming.
The lawsuit said, “Employees were not provided with any notice, written or otherwise, of the mass layoff.”
The allegation is that under the Texas WARN Act employees who are subject to a mass layoff have certain rights including 60-days notice.
“In addition, employees were not paid at all for three, and in some cases, four weeks
of work actually performed,” the lawsuit said.
“These are working people, a lot of them making minimum wage, and nobody cares about them. But the law cares about them, and we are going to make sure the law does something for them,” an attorney for the former employees Jeff Blackburn said.
In an announcement in Amarillo, Blackburn said the employees were the victims of evil corporate greed. He added there could be over 400 employees affected.
Blackburn said, “It’s evil and it ought to be stopped.”
He said those responsible should be “brought to justice… for ruining the lives of this many people.”
The lawsuit said Fired Up Holdings contracted with R Tequila Acquisition, LLC to purchase all or a portion of the restaurants operating as Ruby Tequila’s Mexican Kitchen.
The lawsuit said lawyers believe the sale was never closed.
“Even so, beginning in early May, 2017, Fired Up, Richard Kevin Foote, and Magdalena Baier (together referred to as the “Fired Up Group”) began to assume responsibility for some of the day-to-day operations of the restaurants,” the lawsuit said.
Seven people were listed as plaintiffs, but 55 former employees were listed by name in the lawsuit. More than 400 people might be eligible to join the lawsuit. The lawsuit asks a federal judge in Amarillo for class action status.
