• Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Members
  • Sign in
Westfair Communications
  • HOME
    • WESTCHESTER
    • FAIRFIELD
  • E-EDITIONS
    • Business Journal
    • Podcasts
  • MEMBERS
  • BUSINESS LISTS
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Real Estate
    • Economic Development
    • Hudson Valley
    • Courts
    • Banking & Finance
    • Construction
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Food & Beverage
    • Government
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Nonprofits
    • Retail
    • Technology
    • Home & Design
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Lifestyle
  • SMALL BUSINESS
    • Small Business
    • Food & Restaurants
  • EVENTS
    • 2025 Real Estate
    • 2025 40 Under Forty
    • 2025 Women Innovators
    • 2025 C-Suite Awards
    • 2025 Doctors of Distinction
    • 2025 Hispanic Business Leaders
    • Events Calendar
    • Past Events
      • 2025
        • 2025 Women in Power
        • 2025 Millennial & Gen Z
      • 2024
        • 2024 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2024 Women Innovators
        • 2024 40 Under 40
        • 2024 Real Estate
        • 2024 Women In Power
      • 2023
        • 2023 Women In Power
        • Milli + Genz
        • Women Innovators
        • Forty Under 40
        • Doctors of Distinction
        • Real Estate
      • 2022
        • 2022 Millennial + GenZ Awards
        • 2022 C-Suite Awards
        • 2022 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2022 THE FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE
        • 2022 FORTY UNDER 40
      • 2021
        • 2021 FORTY UNDER 40 VIRTUAL EVENT
        • 2021 TOP WEALTH ADVISORS Virtual Event
        • 2021 Milli + GenZ Awards
        • 2021 C-SUITE
        • 2021 DOCTORS OF DISTINCTION
  • GOOD THINGS
  • VIDEOS
    • Our Starting Lineup
    • News Videos
  • PARTNERS
  • ADVERTISE
  • SUBSCRIBEACT NOW
    • NEWSLETTERS
    • DIGITAL ACCESS
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
    • WESTCHESTER
    • FAIRFIELD
  • E-EDITIONS
    • Business Journal
    • Podcasts
  • MEMBERS
  • BUSINESS LISTS
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Real Estate
    • Economic Development
    • Hudson Valley
    • Courts
    • Banking & Finance
    • Construction
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Food & Beverage
    • Government
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Nonprofits
    • Retail
    • Technology
    • Home & Design
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Lifestyle
  • SMALL BUSINESS
    • Small Business
    • Food & Restaurants
  • EVENTS
    • 2025 Real Estate
    • 2025 40 Under Forty
    • 2025 Women Innovators
    • 2025 C-Suite Awards
    • 2025 Doctors of Distinction
    • 2025 Hispanic Business Leaders
    • Events Calendar
    • Past Events
      • 2025
        • 2025 Women in Power
        • 2025 Millennial & Gen Z
      • 2024
        • 2024 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2024 Women Innovators
        • 2024 40 Under 40
        • 2024 Real Estate
        • 2024 Women In Power
      • 2023
        • 2023 Women In Power
        • Milli + Genz
        • Women Innovators
        • Forty Under 40
        • Doctors of Distinction
        • Real Estate
      • 2022
        • 2022 Millennial + GenZ Awards
        • 2022 C-Suite Awards
        • 2022 Doctors of Distinction
        • 2022 THE FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE
        • 2022 FORTY UNDER 40
      • 2021
        • 2021 FORTY UNDER 40 VIRTUAL EVENT
        • 2021 TOP WEALTH ADVISORS Virtual Event
        • 2021 Milli + GenZ Awards
        • 2021 C-SUITE
        • 2021 DOCTORS OF DISTINCTION
  • GOOD THINGS
  • VIDEOS
    • Our Starting Lineup
    • News Videos
  • PARTNERS
  • ADVERTISE
  • SUBSCRIBEACT NOW
    • NEWSLETTERS
    • DIGITAL ACCESS
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home Courts

Former Tenampa Restaurant cook seeks backpay in bankruptcy action

Bill Heltzel by Bill Heltzel
February 28, 2019
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedIn
Order your reprint PDF today
Print Full Article

For five years, Leonor Toledo has been trying to get her former employer to pay unpaid wages she claims she was denied.

Toledo worked for nearly seven years at Tenampa Restaurant, Croton-on-Hudson, cooking, cleaning and washing dishes. She says she worked 11 to 13 hours a day, six days a week, totaling 72 hours, and was paid as little as $1.74 hour, and never paid the $7.25 minimum wage or overtime.

Toledo sued Luis A. Alvarez, who she claims was an owner of the restaurant, on Feb. 9 in federal bankruptcy court, Poughkeepsie.

Alvarez responded in court filings that he is neither an officer nor owner of the restaurant, maintaining that it is owned by his brother, Jose “Paco” Alvarez, and that Luis had nothing to do with Toledo”™s employment. Luis also demanded that Toledo pay his legal fees.

Toledo worked at Tenampa from 2006 to 2013. Originally, she claims, she was paid $350 a week, then was promised $420 a week in 2008 and $450 a week in 2010. But her actual payments, beginning in late 2008, were sporadic, according to her complaint, and often less than the promised rate.

In March 2011, for instance, she claims she worked 288 hours and was paid $560 for the month, or $1.94 an hour.

She depicts the brothers as the restaurant”™s owners, operators and managers.

In 2014, Toledo sued the brothers and the restaurant in federal court, White Plains, for unpaid wages. Her lawyer later withdrew the case, because the charges were not covered by federal law, and refiled in Dutchess County Supreme Court, alleging violations of state labor laws.

While the Dutchess case was pending, Luis Alvarez filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation. He declared $275,743 in assets ”“ primarily his house in Fishkill, valued at $260,000 ”“ and liabilities of $326,955.

His action was considered a no-asset case; he could keep the house and personal possessions, leaving nothing for creditors. The court discharged his debts and closed the case in 2017.

But Luis Alvarez had not listed Toledo as a creditor or listed the Dutchess lawsuit as a legal action in bankruptcy schedules.

Last year, Toledo”™s attorney, Laura L. Revercomb of the Worker Justice Center of New York, Kingston, asked the bankruptcy court to reopen the bankruptcy case.

Luis Alvarez knew about Toledo”™s claims, she argued, because a lawyer had answered the Dutchess lawsuit on his behalf.

His failure to notify her client of the bankruptcy, she argued, deprived Toledo of the opportunity to file a claim. And when his debts were discharged, Revercomb stated, Toledo was blocked from getting relief in the Dutchess County case.

Alvarez has “avoided paying Ms. Toledo for hundreds of hours of time she spent cooking, cleaning and washing dishes at his restaurant,” she stated, for wages she “has been waiting to receive for close to 10 years. Debtor”™s (Alvarez) unrelenting and long-standing efforts to avoid accountability are palpable.”

Luis Alvarez”™s attorney, David J. Babel, the Bronx, responded that Toledo was not listed as a creditor because his client had not been personally served with the Dutchess County complaint and he had no knowledge of her claim.

He claims that the retainer agreement for the attorney who responded to the Dutchess County complaint, on behalf of the brothers and the restaurant, was not signed by Luis Alvarez.

Luis Alvarez was employed as a chef and had no rights to hire, fire or pay employees.

He “may have had some interaction with Leonor Toledo,” Babel stated, “but only as employee to employee as they worked in the same place of business and in the kitchen.”

Revercomb responded that Luis was personally served notice in the Dutchess County and federal lawsuits, and she included a proof of service and his answer to the federal lawsuit as exhibits.

“Debtor Alvarez”™s knowledge of her as a creditor,” she stated, “is an undisputed fact.”

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Cecilia G. Morris ordered the bankruptcy case to be re-opened, “to determine the dischargeability of debtor”™s liabilities to creditor Leonor Toledo.”

This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.

Previous Post

Kosher supermarket Seasons reopening in Scarsdale

Next Post

Future of long-lived theater of paramount concern in Peekskill

Bill Heltzel

Bill Heltzel

Bill Heltzel has covered criminal justice, courts, government and sports as a beat reporter and investigative reporter for daily newspapers in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. He worked for Bloomberg LP in training and sales. He joined The Business Journal in 2016.

Related Posts

Businessmen plead guilty to gray market medical crime
Courts

Businessmen plead guilty to gray market medical crime

May 13, 2025
Report: Connecticut Sun women’s hoops team for sale
Business Journals

Report: Connecticut Sun women’s hoops team for sale

May 13, 2025
Eye on Small Business — Iscream, Cortlandt Manor
Economy

Eye on Small Business — Iscream, Cortlandt Manor

May 13, 2025
Next Post
Future of long-lived theater of paramount concern in Peekskill

Future of long-lived theater of paramount concern in Peekskill

CareBuilders at Home

CareBuilders at Home establishes CT presence in Stamford

vern hayden

Westport money manager launches Center for Retirement and Investment Planning

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to our newsletter

Lifestyle

  • Exclusives
  • Good Things Happening
  • Food & Restaurants
  • Travel
  • Health & Fitness
  • Home & Design

World News

Biden approves flood aid for Westchester
World News

U.S. and world news for May 13

by Peter Katz
May 13, 2025
0

Inflation rises a bit less than expected The Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, increased 0.2% on a seasonally...

CNN WIRE — Harvard professors sue Trump

CNN WIRE — Behind the attacks on Harvard by the Trump Administration: VIDEO

May 12, 2025
U.S. and world news for May 12

U.S. and world news for May 12

May 12, 2025
CNN WIRE — Trump to accept luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One

CNN WIRE — Trump to accept luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One

May 11, 2025
CNN WIRE — Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter dies at 85: VIDEO

CNN WIRE — Retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter dies at 85: VIDEO

May 9, 2025
U.S. and world news for May 9

U.S. and world news for May 9

May 8, 2025
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

FUND PROVIDES FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
Arts & Leisure

FUND PROVIDES FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

by Westfair Online
May 13, 2025
0

The Enrico Fermi Educational Fund of Yonkers recently honored the 2025 scholarship recipients at its 62nd annual...

New Greenwich financial firm forecasts shiny future for steel industry

Manufacturing List

May 13, 2025
Businessmen plead guilty to gray market medical crime

Businessmen plead guilty to gray market medical crime

May 13, 2025
Biden approves flood aid for Westchester

U.S. and world news for May 13

May 13, 2025
Report: Connecticut Sun women’s hoops team for sale

Report: Connecticut Sun women’s hoops team for sale

May 13, 2025
Logo Westfair Business Journal

Latest News

FUND PROVIDES FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

Manufacturing List

Businessmen plead guilty to gray market medical crime

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Sign in

Trending Westchester

Subscribe to our newsletter

© 2024 Westfair Business Publications. All rights reserved. Westfair Communications (Westfair), a privately held publishing firm based in Mount Kisco, N.Y., publishes the Westchester County Business Journal in New York state and the Fairfield County Business Journal in Connecticut.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
    • WESTCHESTER
    • FAIRFIELD
  • E-EDITIONS
    • Business Journal
    • Podcasts
  • MEMBERS
  • BUSINESS LISTS
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Real Estate
    • Economic Development
    • Hudson Valley
    • Courts
    • Banking & Finance
    • Construction
    • Economy
    • Education
    • Health Care
    • Food & Beverage
    • Government
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Nonprofits
    • Retail
    • Technology
    • Home & Design
    • Health & Fitness
    • Travel
    • Lifestyle
  • SMALL BUSINESS
    • Small Business
    • Food & Restaurants
  • EVENTS
    • 2025 Real Estate
    • 2025 40 Under Forty
    • 2025 Women Innovators
    • 2025 C-Suite Awards
    • 2025 Doctors of Distinction
    • 2025 Hispanic Business Leaders
    • Events Calendar
    • Past Events
      • 2025
      • 2024
      • 2023
      • 2022
      • 2021
  • GOOD THINGS
  • VIDEOS
    • Our Starting Lineup
    • News Videos
  • PARTNERS
  • ADVERTISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
    • NEWSLETTERS
    • DIGITAL ACCESS

© 2024 Westfair Business Journal. All rights reserved.