A former San Jose restaurant employee has filed a lawsuit accusing his earlier boss of forcing him to deal with two fellow workers in his small one-bedroom house, threatening to get him deported and saying he would “destroy him and his household” for disobedience.
Afwan Mohammed claims his boss’s actions left him with panic assaults, desires that somebody was suffocating him, and “extreme despair and anxiousness” that put him within the hospital for every week beneath medicine. He's nonetheless taking despair medicine, the lawsuit alleges.
“I used to be simply hopeless,” Mohammed, 23, mentioned by cellphone, including that whereas working at Karimi Restaurant he failed two programs at De Anza Faculty, the place he’s learning enterprise whereas employed full time now in a financial institution. “I couldn’t deal with my research, I couldn’t do something.”
He mentioned he give up his job as a waiter for a place as a financial institution teller and moved out of the house, however stays because the lease holder whereas restaurant workers are nonetheless dwelling there and could also be evicted for damaging the unit, ensnaring him him in additional bother.
Mohammed started working 12-hour days on the downtown Karimi Restaurant shortly after arriving in the united statesfrom India in the summertime of 2018 as an 18-year-old on a pupil visa, his lawsuit in opposition to the restaurant’s proprietor claims. The lawsuit additional alleges that Mohammed was underpaid by greater than $80,000 over his 3.5 years at Karimi, which serves South Asian specialties.
The lawsuit contends that if he’d been paid minimal wage, he would have obtained a further $28,000 in wages, and if he’d been paid extra time, an additional $55,000. He’s looking for at the very least $104,000 for unpaid wages, damages, penalties and curiosity.
Mohammed’s boss, Karimi proprietor Rifakat Saiyed, is accused of insisting Mohammed drive his undesirable roommates to and from work and requiring him to “affirmatively misrepresent” to the California Financial Improvement Division that Saiyed’s spouse had labored on the restaurant, so she may get COVID-related unemployment advantages, the lawsuit filed this month in Santa Clara County Superior Courtroom alleges.
In September, Mohammed obtained a brief restraining order in opposition to Saiyed after accusing him of threatening and harassing him, and the 2 males then agreed to not contact one another, in response to court docket data.
Saiyed couldn't instantly be reached for remark. In a court docket submitting responding to Mohammed’s utility for the restraining order, Saiyed denied Mohammed’s claims about threatening and harassing him, and mentioned as a substitute that he had taken care of him “like his personal son.” Mohammed’s “baseless allegations” have been “stunning and heartbreaking” for Saiyed, in response to the response. The lawyer who represented Saiyed within the restraining order matter mentioned he had not seen Mohammed’s lawsuit and couldn't touch upon it.
Mohammed alleges that Saiyed additionally incessantly made him run errands that took up his lunch hour, and compelled him to get up each Sunday morning at 5:30 a.m. to take one of many workers dwelling with him to the bus station. On some days off, Mohammed needed to drive considered one of his roommates to work and decide him up, he claims.
Saiyed gave him money to cowl the hire for the employees dwelling in Mohammed’s unit, however nothing for utilities, and refused to provide Mohammed pay stubs so he may get hold of the working-student tuition charge at De Anza, the lawsuit alleges.
Mohammed mentioned he moved in January 2022 to a buddy’s house in the identical constructing, however then needed to pay hire for each items till he moved to Campbell seven months later. He mentioned he give up Karimi in Could 2022 after getting employed at a financial institution on the Peninsula.
Mohammed mentioned Saiyed left a voicemail demanding he come to the restaurant, and when the 2 met, Saiyed “belittled and demeaned (Mohammed) for purportedly being disrespectful and never appreciating that he purportedly was handled like a son,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Saiyed made numerous threats, together with that within the occasion (Mohammed) would disobey him then he would have (him) deported,” the lawsuit alleges. When Mohammed indicated that he didn't want to pay for the house utilities going ahead, Saiyed “turned enraged” and demanded that he go away the USA inside 30 days or Saiyed would “make a hell for (him) and destroy him and his household,” the lawsuit claims.
Now, at the very least three Karimi workers and an affiliate of theirs live within the house, and the owner is threatening eviction as a result of they’ve prompted injury and put in a lock on the bed room door in violation of the lease, Mohammed claims.
He mentioned he’s in an unimaginable place: If he asks the boys to depart and so they agree, he’ll be caught with the invoice to repair the damages. If the owner goes via eviction proceedings, the boys will probably be out of the house, however he’ll have an eviction on his report, severely hampering his capacity to hire elsewhere, he mentioned.
“Taking any motion,” he mentioned, “is an issue.”