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Commitments and Contingencies
12 Months Ended
Dec. 29, 2019
Commitments And Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]  
Commitments and Contingencies

(14) Commitments and Contingencies

The Company is subject to legal proceedings, claims and liabilities, such as employment-related claims and slip and fall cases, which arise in the ordinary course of business and are generally covered by insurance. The Company accrues for such liabilities when it is probable that future costs will be incurred and such costs can be reasonably estimated. Such accruals are based on developments to date, the Company’s estimates of the outcomes of these matters and its experience in contesting, litigating and settling other similar matters. In the opinion of management, the amount of ultimate liability with respect to those actions should not have a material adverse impact on the Company’s financial position or results of operations and cash flows.

In October 2017, plaintiffs filed a purported collective and class action lawsuit (the “Complaint”) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Company alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL). The plaintiffs allege that the Company violated the FLSA and NYLL by not paying overtime compensation to our assistant managers and violated NYLL by not paying spread-of-hours pay. The Complaint was brought as a nationwide “collective action” under the FLSA and as a “class action” under NYLL. Since the filing of the Complaint, the plaintiffs filed a proposed amended complaint removing the NYLL class claim, but adding a proposed Illinois state law class action. In May 2019, the parties participated in a mediation and resolved the claims, which received final court approval on February 4, 2020. All charges related to the claims are reflected in the statement of operations.

Many of the food products the Company purchases are subject to changes in the price and availability of food commodities, including, among other things, beef, poultry, grains, dairy and produce. The Company works with its suppliers and uses a mix of forward pricing protocols for certain items including agreements with its supplier on fixed prices for deliveries at a time in the future and agreements on a fixed price with its supplier for the duration of those protocols. The Company also utilizes formula pricing protocols under which the prices the Company pays are based on a specified formula related to the prices of the goods, such as spot prices. The Company’s use of any forward pricing arrangements varies substantially from time to time and these arrangements tend to cover relatively short periods (i.e., typically twelve months or less). Such contracts are used in the normal purchases of the Company’s food products and not for speculative purposes, and as such are not required to be evaluated as derivative instruments.