Waitress Claims Hooters Engaged in Unlawful Discrimination - FOX2-TV

FOX2 TV - Detroit
May 24, 2010

Attorney Mark Bernstein:

When the Rockettes start serving beer and wings, then I’ll accept that comparison.

News Reporter Jason Carr:

Do Hooters’ girls qualify as “entertainers”? That’s one legal argument you can expect to hear if this case goes to court, now that there is a lawsuit. We’ll talk to Mark Bernstein the attorney, and the plaintiff Cassie, the Hooters girl at the heart of all this.

Cassie Smith:

I was horrified. I was completely heart broken. I was humiliated.

News Anchor Huel Perkins:

She was told her body was too big to fit into an extra-small work uniform. Now the waitress told to “shape up” is fighting back. Right now, she a 20 year old college student with dreams of becoming a school teacher. But she’s also the plaintiff in a lawsuit that is sure to make international headlines.

News Anchor Jackie Paige:

At issue, did Hooters violate the civil rights of Cassie Smith? Fox 2’s Jason Carr talks with the Roseville woman and her attorney.

Cassie Smith:

It’s horrible. What they do is not right. Since when am I overweight? I was never told I was overweight in my life. And now I have to lose weight to keep my job?

News Reporter Jason Carr:

Ex-Hooters waitress Cassie Smith of Roseville is sticking a hot wing with extra sauce in the eye of her former employer. The wing, belonging to legal eagle Mark Bernstein. The sauce, a lawsuit seeking unspecified damages.

Attorney Mark Bernstein:

Hooters is very calculating. They are very sophisticated. This is a company that has 17,000 women in this position. They have three sizes of uniforms: small, extra-small, and extra-extra-small.

News Reporter Jason Carr:

Cassie’s case went nationwide when she was told Fox 2 the Roseville Hooters put her on “weight probation” and did so using very carefully chosen language.

Cassie Smith:

They explained to me that I had weakness in my uniform fitting size, and that I would have 30 days to improve this weakness, and offered me a free gym membership.

News Reporter Jason Carr:

Last week, Hooters implied its waitresses are “entertainers,” not unlike the Rockettes or the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Bernstein scoffs at the idea.

Attorney Mark Bernstein:

When the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders start finding people locations to sit in a restaurant and taking people’s credit cards up to the register, I’ll accept that argument. But that’s not happening.

News Reporter Jason Carr:

Michigan is the only state in the nation with a law against weight discrimination. And to those who claim Cassie is trying to profit from it, she says . . .

Cassie Smith:

This became public before a lawyer was even brought into the situation. This is something that I am voicing out because it is something that is important and it is something that needs to be said.

Attorney Mark Bernstein:

This is not a crusade against Hooters. Let’s be very clear about that. This is just a crusade so that women who want to work at a location like Hooters can do so in a healthy, safe way.

News Reporter Jason Carr:

Bernstein said the case could take 2 years to resolve, provided Hooters doesn’t settle. Fox 2 called Hooters in Atlanta. At news time, we had not heard back. Jason Carr, Fox 2 News.