How to file a lawsuit against a public entity: Video
To file a lawsuit against a public entity, a person must first file a tort claim notice.
Miguel Fernandez and Stephanie Noda, NorthJersey.com
A caddie who worked at the Glen Ridge and Mountain Ridge country clubs filed a class action lawsuit against them.Jeffrey Woolridge said the country clubs violated the state’s Wage and Hours Law, failing to pay minimum wage and overtime pay.The lawsuit said caddies can wait around all day and not get paid because they are paid through “bag fees” which a golfer doesn’t always pay.
Are some Essex County country clubs declaring its caddies as independent contractors to bypass certain employment benefits? A caddie at the Glen Ridge and Mountain Ridge country clubs accused them of just that in recent lawsuits.
Jeffrey Woolridge has been a caddie at the Glen Ridge Country Club since 1986, working on and off for years, and at the Mountain Ridge Country Club in West Caldwell for the 2020 and 2022 seasons. He has filed two class-action lawsuits for himself and his co-workers, claiming that the country clubs violated the New Jersey Wage and Hour Law. Woolridge said the clubs failed to pay minimum wage and did not provide overtime pay as required.
Calls to the Glen Ridge and Mountain Ridge country clubs were not immediately returned.
Douglas Lipsky, one of the attorneys for Woolridge, said the country clubs have “never given thought to whether or not [the pay structure is] lawful and fair.”
The lawsuit said caddies are employed during the golf season from May until November and about 30 are hired “at any one time.”
Woolridge noted that most caddies are from New Jersey. A caddie master is responsible for assigning caddies to golfers, supervising their work, hiring and firing, disciplining them, creating schedules and handling complaints from members about caddies.
According to the Glen Ridge lawsuit, caddies are “an intricate part of the experience of playing a round of golf” at the club and the caddies must be on the property to be assigned to a player.
A caddie’s day typically starts around 6 a.m. and ends around 5:30 p.m. but the time “largely depends on whether it is light enough to still play golf and whether they are on a loop.” Caddies can be requested, preassigned or wait to be assigned and can sometimes wait over two hours or more to be assigned to a golfer.
Caddies are also “are required to find, identify and retrieve golfers’ golf balls, clean the golfers’ clubs and balls, correct divots on the golf course, rake sand traps after use, remove the flag from the hole on the putting green, and provide the golfers, when asked, with suggestions on what club to use and information on the course,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit described the common practices for caddies and the caddie master, indicating that caddies typically work five days a week and average 50 hours per week.
The suit said “at no point” had the Glen Ridge or Mountain Ridge country clubs, anyone in management or the caddie master refer to the caddies, “verbally or in writing” as employees. The suit said the clubs consider them independent contractors instead of classifying them as employees.
According to the lawsuit, caddies aren’t paid an hourly rate or premium overtime if they work more than 40 hours. Woolridge said the caddies are only paid by the players they caddie for plus tips, which are typically around $100 per bag at both clubs, but the bag fee comes at the golfer’s discretion and not every member tips.
Woolridge said he worked about eight hours a day, six days a week and would sometimes wait all day to be assigned to a golfer, potentially leaving him without compensation for the day at Glen Ridge.
At Mountain Ridge, Woolridge worked between three and four days a week, a total 36 to 48 hours, and, like at Glen Ridge, would wait an entire day sometimes to be assigned.
Lipsky said one of the purposes of the lawsuit was for country clubs like Glen Ridge and Mountain Ridge to “rethink” how caddies are being compensated.
“These clubs do not exist without them, and sometimes these caddies wait around hours and days without going out on a loop with a golfer,” Lipsky said. “And the clubs don’t pay them for that.”
The caddies are asking for all of their unpaid minimum wages and overtime pay, damages, and reimbursement of attorney’s fees.
Caddies at the Montclair Golf Club in West Orange filed a similar class action lawsuit in 2022, saying they had to clean bathrooms and fetch golfers’ drinks for no pay.
