Kanye West Coughing Up $625,000 in Battle With Ex-Employees
Kanye West and his company Yeezy apparel agreed to cough up a six-figure sum to settle a class action lawsuit brought by former Yeezy employees, In Touch can exclusively report.
According to court documents obtained by In Touch, the ex-employees, Taliah LeslieShelby Grochowski, asked the court to approve the deal they hashed out with Ye's team.
Per the deal, Ye and Yeezy will pay a total of $625,000 to resolve the case. The amount will pay the ex-employees, the lawyers who worked on the case and will keep a portion aside for any potential future claims from ex-employees.
Taliah and Shelby started work with Yeezy in November 2019 as an assistant designer and assistant patternmaker.
They both claimed to have been classified as independent contractors when they should have been non-exempt employees. It was alleged that Yeezy and Ye "eventually reclassified [Shelby] as an employee despite giving him the same job duties, but misclassified him as exempt from overtime when his true classification should have been non-exempt."
In May 2021, Taliah filed a lawsuit against the musician and his company for various labor code violations, "including the failure to pay overtime wages, minimum wages, meal and rest break premiums, willful misclassification, wage statement violations, recordkeeping violations, and the failure to pay all wages upon the termination of employment."
Taliah said she worked for Yeezy from November 2019 to March 2020.
She said, "Defendants failed to compensate Plaintiff and the Aggrieved Employees for off- the-clock work on the jobsite, for compulsory travel to and from out-of-town locations (including travel to Cody, Wyoming, and Paris, France), for compulsory travel to and from the out-of-town jobsites, and for other off-the-clock work, which Plaintiff and the aggrieved employees performed with Defendants' knowledge and/or consent."
She claimed, "This resulted in Defendant failing to compensate all overtime hours worked when Plaintiff and Aggrieved Employees worked over eight hours in one day or forty hours in one week. Defendants also failed to compensate other Aggrieved Employees who were misclassified as exempt from overtime pay."
Further, "[Taliah] and the aggrieved employees regularly worked in excess of five (5) and/or ten (10) hours a day without being provided at least half-hour meal periods in which they were relieved of all duties and free to leave the work site or facility during the meal period." On top of that, she claimed Ye controlled the working conditions by imposing rules based on his personal tastes and preferences.
The lawsuit alleged, "For example, West did not like the smell of food in the working area and prohibited Plaintiff and the Aggrieved Employees from eating inside indoors. As a result, Plaintiff and the Aggrieved Employees were required to eat outdoors for all their meals at work, regardless of inclement weather or the presence of any suitable seating."
Taliah sued seeking unspecified damages. Ye and the ex-employees had been attempting to mediate the case since October 2022. Ye and Yeezy denied all allegations of wrongdoing. In May, the defendants agreed to allow Taliah to add Shelby as a plaintiff to the suit.
The agreement noted, "Defendants deny any liability or wrongdoing of any kind associated with the claims alleged in the Action, disputes the damages and penalties claimed by Plaintiffs, and further contends that, for any purpose other than settlement, Plaintiffs' claims are not appropriate for class or representative action treatment. Defendants contend, among other things, that, at all times, they have complied with the California Labor Code, and the Industrial Wage Commission Orders."
Ye's wife, Bianca Censori, signed the agreement on behalf of her husband and Yeezy. Ye may have settled one case but as In Touch first reported the musician was sued by an opera composer earlier this month.
