Human Trafficking + Workers' Comp Claims + California Panic Buttons + Liquor Licenses + Tips, Tip Pooling, and Tip Credits

I. Human Trafficking Evolves Into a Defense and an Offense in Court

With the Office of the Texas Attorney General estimating that 234,000 labor trafficking victims and 79,000 minor sex trafficking victims are suffering in the state at any given moment,2 the Texas Legislature, like many legislative bodies across the country, is going on the offensive and attempting to tackle traffickers where they are most vulnerable—at hotels and lodging facilities, entertainment venues, restaurants, massage parlors, salons, and other commercial enterprises where businesses willingly or unwittingly become a part of traffickers’ crimes against humanity.

One case out of Wisconsin – The State of Wisconsin v. Chrystul Kizer3 – illustrates how broadly courts and law enforcement agencies have shifted their perspectives on human trafficking victims. Litigators and law enforcement authorities no longer view trafficked individuals as prostitutes, but rather as individuals who are trapped and in need of aid from society at large. In the Kizer case, the Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide whether Kizer, a victim of sex trafficking as a teen, can use her trafficker’s illicit activities against her as a claim for self-defense after she was charged with the murder of her trafficker.

Employees in a restaurant setting often receive tips, and employers often take a "tip credit" toward the minimum wage that they have to pay (allowing the employer in Arkansas to pay $2.63/hour to the tipped employee if the tipped employee receives at least $8.37 per hour in tips to make up the difference between $2.63/hour and Arkansas’s $11.00/hour minimum wage). "Tip pooling" is another common practice, where all of the tips are collected and then evenly distributed among the restaurant’s employees. However, if employers choose to implement a tip pool or tip credit, they must keep the following guidelines in mind to make sure that their tipping policy complies with the FLSA.