The Tenth Circuit recently affirmed a $2,137,627.44 judgment from the Northern District of Oklahoma that a restaurant chain instructed its employees to lie during interviews and provided falsified employee time records, impeding a Department of Labor investigation. Perez v. El Tequila, LLC, February 7, 2017.

The Court found that the time records submitted to the Department of Labor were based on false summaries of how many hours employees worked, rather than actual clock-in and clock-out times. In some cases the time entries had been edited to conform with the FLSA.  The Court concluded that the evidence indicated that the employer adjusted records to suggest that workers were properly paid, withheld documents, misrepresented how employees were paid, and instructed employees to do the same. The Tenth Circuit affirmed the $2 million judgment.