Exotic Dancers Win Court Fight Against County Strip Clubs

Greenbelt, MD — Women who worked as exotic dancers in two Prince George’s County strip clubs have won the latest round in a court fight to win minimum wage pay as employees.

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a previous ruling that the dancers were employees of the clubs, not independent contractors as the strip club owner argued.

Uwa Offiah owns and manages the two clubs involved in the lawsuit: Fuego Exotic Dance Club in Hyattsville and Extasy Exotic Dance Club in Temple Hills, the court said.

The women say that the strip clubs where they worked failed to give them a paycheck for their hours worked and their earnings were limited to performance fees and tips from customers. They claimed that the clubs failed to pay them the minimum wage that is required by federal law in the Fair Labor Standards Act and Maryland state law.

Club owners across the county tend to call dancers independent contractors so the businesses don’t have to provide a workers’ compensation policy to cover their employees or pay unemployment insurance, says ThinkProgress. The designation also lets clubs avoid sexual harassment or discrimination claims when dancers are manhandled by customers since the women aren’t classified as employees.

A federal jury in 2015 awarded the dancers $196,956 in damages for unpaid minimum wages and overtime under Maryland’s state labor laws, reports the Law360 website. A judge then added $68,320 in liquidated damages to the amount owed to the women.

The legal battle began when Laura McFeeley and Danielle Everett filed a lawsuit in April 2012, claiming the club owner broke the law by failing to pay hourly wages. The lawsuit also said the clubs had imposed a system of fines that cut into the dancers' bottom lines, the legal site says.