Ohio Nightclub Dancer Unpaid Wages Class Action Settlement ($800K)

Wage & Hour · Claims Open

Current Status

Claims are open. The deadline to file a claim form is October 20, 2026, which the court-approved Notice describes as 90 days from the date of the Notice; the Notice gives only that date and does not specify a cutoff time or timezone. October 20, 2026 is also the deadline to object to the settlement and the deadline to exclude yourself from the class. The Court has scheduled a hearing for December 1, 2026 on whether to approve the settlement and the requests for attorney fees, litigation expenses and service awards. No final approval order had been entered and no payment date had been announced as of August 24, 2026.

What Changed Recently?

The Claims Administrator has issued the court-approved Notice and opened the claim process, which is what put dates on the calendar: an October 20, 2026 deadline to file, object or opt out, and a December 1, 2026 hearing on approval. The case has been pending in the Southern District of Ohio since 2015, and the Court certified a class before the parties reached this settlement, so the class definition below comes from the Court's own earlier order rather than from the settlement agreement.

The dispute is about a document. According to the Notice, the clubs named as defendants required dancers to sign a "Lease Agreement" or a similar contract in order to work, and the plaintiffs allege that agreement was created by defendant Greg Flaig. The plaintiffs allege that, beginning at some point on or after May 14, 2014, the clubs paid dancers no wages on the strength of that agreement, and instead charged them fees including "rent" — treating dancers as tenants leasing space, and therefore as independent contractors rather than employees. The plaintiffs sought unpaid wages and the return of those deductions under Ohio law and the Fair Labor Standards Act, plus damages for civil conspiracy and unjust enrichment under Ohio common law, price-fixing damages under federal and state antitrust law, and injunctive relief.

None of that has been decided. The Notice states that the defendants have denied, and continue to deny, most of these allegations and maintain that they did not violate applicable laws. The settlement resolves the case without a ruling on the merits. If you want the background on how these claims work generally, our explainer on FLSA wage and hour violations covers the federal wage floor and the misclassification question at the center of this case.

Who Qualifies?

Under the proposed settlement, you may claim a share of the money if you worked as a dancer or entertainer at any of the following six Ohio clubs at some point between May 14, 2014 and June 16, 2025:

• Cheeks — West Carrollton, Ohio
• Private Dancer — Columbus, Ohio
• Top Hat — Mansfield, Ohio
• House of Babes — Columbus, Ohio
• Fantasyland West — Bucyrus, Ohio

The Court's earlier certification order defined the Class more technically, and that definition is what governs membership: all non-owner, non-employer dancers who worked at any defendant club at any time from May 14, 2014 to the present, while that club either used the Entertainer Tenant System created and disseminated by defendant Greg Flaig, required its dancers to sign and abide by the Entertainer Tenant Space Lease Agreement created and disseminated by Flaig, or otherwise formally regarded its dancers as leasing space at the club as entertainers and required them to acknowledge it — and while that club paid its dancers no wages.

Two points follow from that wording. Owners and employers of the clubs are outside the class. And the defendants named in the case are broader than the six venues: they include the clubs' owners and managers, Greg Flaig individually, the Buckeye Association of Club Executives and The Owners Coalition. Dancers who received a postcard notice were identified from the defendants' own records.