14/06/2021
A restaurant manager who forced a Black man to work without pay owes him more than $500,000 in restitution, court rules - CNN
Related Article: A restaurant manager
US
gets 10 years in prison for beating and
torturing a black employee
appeals court said.
of living," then they should be paid double that amount,
the Supreme Court decided in 1945.
"When an employer fails to pay those amounts, the
employee suffers losses, which includes the loss of the
use of that money during the period of delay," the federal
The district court will now calculate the new amount Smith is owed.
CNN has reached out to the US Attorney's Office in South Carolina and the Department of Justice's Civil Rights
Division, which ordered the original restitution payment, for comment.
Smith endured years of abuse
Smith started working at the cafeteria as a part-time dishwasher when he was 12, according to the recent
ruling. His first 19 years of employment there, when the restaurant was managed by other members of
Edwards' family, were paid.
But when Edwards took over the restaurant in 2009, Smith was moved into an apartment next to the
restaurant and forced to work more than 100 hours every week without pay, according to the ruling.
"Edwards effected this forced labor by taking advantage
of Jack's intellectual disability and keeping Jack isolated
from his family, threatening to have him arrested, and
verbally abusing him," the ruling reads.
Smith feared Edwards, who once dipped metal tongs into
grease and pressed them into Smith's neck when Smith
failed to quickly restock the buffet with fried chicken, the
ruling says. Edwards also whipped Smith with his belt,
punched him and beat him with kitchen pans, leaving
Smith "physically and psychologically scarred," according
to the ruling.
Related Article: Restaurant manager
beat black employee for years and forced
him to work without pay
go anywhere. I couldn't see none of my family."
But Smith also feared what might happen if he attempted
to escape, he told CNN affiliate WPDE in 2017.
"I wanted to get out of there a long time ago. But I didn't
have nobody I could go to," he told the affiliate. "I couldn't
The ruling says an employee's relative alerted authorities of the abuse in 2014, and the South Carolina
Department of Social Services removed Smith from the restaurant that year.
"We are talking about enslavement here," Abdullah Mustafa, then the president of the local chapter of the
NAACP, said at the time.
CNN has reached out to the Conway chapter of the South Carolina NAACP for comment.
CNN's Faith Karimi contributed to this report.
Search CNN...
World
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/03/us/south-carolina-man-forced-work-restitution-doubled-trnd/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_medium=social&ut… 2/3