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Lawsuit against Vail Resorts alleges federal, state labor law violations

Suit filed in U.S. District Court seeks class-action status

Tom Lotshaw
Vail Daily
A new maze is set out to help people social distance on opening day at Vail Mountain. A new lawsuit filed against Vail Resorts seeks class-action status for eligible current and former employees who worked for the company over the past three years.
Photo by Chris Dillmann / Vail Daily

EAGLE — A lawsuit filed against Vail Resorts on behalf of three employees is seeking class-action status and alleges the company has repeatedly violated federal labor laws as well as state labor laws in Colorado, California, Utah, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, New York, Vermont and Michigan.

The lawsuit was filed Dec. 3 in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on behalf of Randy Dean Quint, John Linn and Mark Molina. It seeks class-action status for eligible current and former employees who worked for Vail Resorts over the past three years.

“Vail Resorts has exploited plaintiffs and thousands of other seasonal employees in violation of federal and state labor laws for years, and these egregious practices continue to the present,” states the lawsuit, filed by California-based attorneys Edward P. Dietrich and Benjamin Galdston. “This action seeks to hold Vail Resorts responsible for its misconduct, fairly compensate plaintiffs and other similarly situated current and former Vail Resorts employees for damages preliminarily estimated to total more than $100 million.”



Dietrich and Galdston declined to comment on the lawsuit. Vail Resorts did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit states that while Vail Resorts has repeatedly touted its above-market hourly wages, it “willfully and systematically fails to pay its hourly employees for all hours worked at the hourly wage specified in employment agreements.”



It alleges that ski and snowboard instructors and other employees, including ticket scanners and lift operators, are to various degrees not fully paid for their entire shifts, “off-the-clock” work Vail Resorts requires or accepts, some types of training, travel and dressing time, and the use, purchase or maintenance of their ski and snowboard equipment or their cellphones.

“All told, Vail Resorts fails to pay snowsports instructors for more than 2.5 hours of work per day in violation of the the (Fair Labor Standards Act) and applicable state law,” the lawsuit alleges.

According to the 167-page lawsuit, Quint has worked as a seasonal Vail Resorts employee and full-time snowsports instructor for seven years at Beaver Creek Resort. The lawsuit estimates he worked 470 hours for which he was not paid from December 2017 to December 2019 as well as 422 hours of unpaid overtime.

Linn, who is also a resident of Colorado and has worked as a part-time and full-time snowsports instructor at Beaver Creek, worked 213 hours for which he was not paid from December 2017 through March 2020 as well as 130 hours of unpaid overtime, according to the lawsuit.

“Vail Resorts knowingly failed to compensate plaintiffs and thousands of other similarly situated employees at their relevant hourly rate for all time worked. Vail Resorts also knowingly failed to reimburse plaintiffs and others similarly situated for costs associated with their smartphones and tools of the trade used in performance of their jobs and for the benefit of Vail Resorts. In violation of federal and state laws, Vail Resorts has illegally reaped millions of dollars at the expense of plaintiffs and other class members,” the lawsuit states.

In Colorado, Vail Resorts owns Beaver Creek and Vail Mountain in Eagle County, Breckenridge Ski Resort and Keystone Resort in Summit County, and Crested Butte in Gunnison County.

This story is from VailDaily.com.


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