Federal Court Dismisses Non-Binary Sous Chef's Claims Against Del Frisco's Grille

The Southern District of New York handed Del Frisco's Grille of New York, LLC a complete win on March 9, dismissing every claim filed by a former non-binary sous chef, including allegations of workplace discrimination, unpaid overtime, and wage statement violations.

The plaintiff had assembled a multi-front legal challenge, filing claims under the New York State Human Rights Law for discrimination and retaliation, under the Fair Labor Standards Act for unpaid overtime, and under state law for both unpaid overtime compensation and wage statement violations. The court disposed of each on distinct grounds, none of which required reaching the underlying merits of the allegations.

The state discrimination and retaliation claims under the New York State Human Rights Law were dismissed for lack of supplemental jurisdiction. Without a surviving federal claim to anchor them, the court had no basis to hear the state-law discrimination counts. The FLSA overtime claim, which would have provided that federal hook, fell away separately: the court found those claims were subject to a valid arbitration agreement that the plaintiff was required to follow. The wage statement claims, the third prong of the case, were dismissed because the plaintiff failed to allege a concrete injury, a threshold requirement that courts have increasingly enforced strictly in the wake of federal standing doctrine.

The result is a complete dismissal of all claims against Del Frisco's Grille, a chain owned by Del Frisco's Restaurant Group. The case was categorized by Bloomberg Law as Wage & Hour/Arbitration under S.D.N.Y. jurisdiction. No docket number, judge name, or written opinion text has been made publicly available through the sources covering this ruling, and it is not yet clear whether the dismissals were issued with or without prejudice, or whether the plaintiff intends to pursue the overtime claims through arbitration as the court indicated they must.

For kitchen workers and front-of-house employees alike, the case illustrates how employment agreements containing arbitration clauses can redirect or effectively end court-filed wage disputes before any factual record is developed. The jurisdictional dismissal of the discrimination claims on supplemental jurisdiction grounds is a separate concern: when a federal hook disappears, state human rights claims can lose their federal forum entirely, forcing workers to refile in state court or abandon the claims. Whether the former sous chef pursues either path remains unknown.