14-05-2025
EXCLUSIVE Lisa Vanderpump and husband settle $490K lawsuit after refusing to pay ex-Pump 'aggrieved employees'
Lisa Vanderpump and her husband Ken Todd have officially settled their nearly half-million dollar lawsuit in their legal fight with disgruntled former Pump employees.
According to the judgment filed in Los Angeles at the end of April, the Vanderpump Rules star and Todd, 79, were ordered by the judge to fund the Gross Settlement Amount of $490,000, after they agreed on the settlement terms.
The Plaintiff's Motion for Final Approval of Class and Representative Action Settlement was granted on April 28 after a hearing took place.
The lawsuit has been ongoing for nearly five years- ever since a former employee, Ernest R. Bennick, sued Vanderpump, 64, Todd and their business, Pump LLC in August 2020, for failure to pay minimum wages, failure to pay overtime wages, violating labor codes, failure to provide compliant meal periods and failure to pay wages at termination among other things.
The defendants denied these claims at the time, alleging that the complaint was 'barred, or at least limited, by putative class members' mutual agreement to arbitrate employment-related claims.'
Despite the settlement amount totaling $490,000, the plaintiffs were awarded a net settlement amount of $252,638.96, according to court documents exclusively obtained by
The Net Settlement Amount was determined by subtracting the requested Class Counsel attorneys' fees of $163,333.33, reimbursement of Class Counsel costs of $18,527.71, an enhancement award to Plaintiff Bennick of $7,500, Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) penalties of $40,000 ($10,000 of which would be distributed to the 'Aggrieved Employees' - those who worked for Defendants in California from August 2019 through the end of the Class Period), and costs of settlement administration of $8,000.
A case review has been scheduled a year from now to ensure that funds have been successfully delivered and funded by the defendants, including Todd and Pump LLC.
The Settlement Class consists of former Pump employees who worked at the West Hollywood restaurant, which closed in July 2023, from August 2016 through December 2022.
Bennick, who acted as the ring leader in the lawsuit, worked at Pump from July 2018 to December 2019 where he worked as a server.
He wrote in his declaration filed last month, 'I feel that by bringing this lawsuit, I could stand up for not only my rights but the rights of other employees who suffered from the same unfair wage practices.
'I felt that current employees might not want to share their experiences with Defendants since they feared losing their jobs.'
He added, 'My goal in bringing this lawsuit was to obtain a recovery on behalf of the class, and, even more importantly, to put an end to what I believe are illegal practices on the part of Defendants. I believe I have achieved both through this lawsuit and settlement.'
Shortly after Pump closed in 2023, Todd and Vanderpump initially did not agree on paying the settlement amount due to issues with the closure, including 'back rent and future rent issues with the restaurant's landlord' and the 'overall downturn in business,' according to a report on The U.S. Sun.
The plaintiff fired back in a response filed in October 2023, slamming multiple 'false' and 'self-serving claims,' including that Pump had 'no assets remaining.'
Bennick referenced Pump's re-opening at Tom Sandoval and Tom Schwartz's restaurant TomTom, which is owned by the Toms and Vanderpump and her husband.
He also called out the restaurateur for boasting about being a 'multimillionaire individual' who has a reported net worth of $90 million.
Todd and Vanderpump seem to be better off, especially after revealing they would be turning The Cromwell Hotel in Las Vegas into The Vanderpump Hotel - a project made in partnership with Caesars Entertainment that is expected to open in early 2026.
She also owns SUR Restaurant & Lounge in Los Angeles, three restaurants in Las Vegas - Vanderpump Cocktail Garden, Vanderpump à Paris and Pinky's by Vanderpump - as well as a Lake Tahoe eatery, Wolf by Vanderpump.
The Vanderpump Villa star is currently filming the reboot of Vanderpump Rules.
The most recent 11th season - which finished airing in May of last year - had featured Katie Maloney, Ariana Madix, Tom Sandoval, Tom Schwartz, Lala Kent, James Kennedy and Scheana Shay.
Episodes focused on the disputes and conflicts between the cast not long after Scandoval - when Sandoval cheated on his longtime girlfriend Ariana with Rachel Leviss. The future of the series was left rocky amid a feuding cast.
At the end of last year, however, it was announced that the show would be getting an entirely new cast with only Lisa Vanderpump returning.
The new cast will consist of 'close-knit SUR-vers who are as complicatedly involved with one another as their iconic predecessor,' per Bravo.
Vanderpump expressed at the time of the reboot announcement: 'The last 12 years of filming have been an extraordinary run full of laughter, tears and everything in between. I can't thank enough those who have shared their lives.
'How I love you all. In the restaurant business, one shift always gives way to another. Cheers to the next generation of Vanderpump Rules.'
The reboot will also 'celebrate the past decade of heartbreaks, friendship rifts and scandals with a retrospective special highlighting the past 11 seasons.'
Maloney, 38, recently said that she was 'ready to walk away' from the show and slammed the reboot as being 'cheap.'
She told her ex-husband and former costar Tom in an episode of the Detox Retox podcast, 'I was ready to walk away but it doesn't mean [I] don't care about our show and the legacy that we brought to it.'
She then added, 'I feel like this isn't against any of them. I don't know them but it just feels cheap to me. It feels cheap and I don't like cheap.'
The Something About Her co-owner emphasized that she wasn't slamming the new cast, but instead wondered why the network just didn't create 'a whole different show.'
'To me it just feels like it's going try to have the same flavor, the same everything…. When you try to replicate the recipe just based off of taste, you can't do it,' she explained.
Meanwhile, Ally Lewber, James Kennedy's ex, shared her excitement over the new cast in an interview with
'I'm not for sure like who's actually cast. But... I do love Demi. She's a waitress there. And like I've met her at a bunch of events. Love her. She's really sweet.
'So I think that she's on it, but I don't really even know. It'll be fun to find out,' the 29-year-old said while promoting her new astrology-inspired podcast, StarStruck.
The cast for the VPR reboot has yet to officially be announced by Bravo.
She added, 'I really I feel like we're all in the same boat like I don't know anything [but] I'm gonna tune it. I'm proud. I feel out of curiosity, you know. I can't imagine that I wouldn't.
'I think that it probably was kind of the end of an era. It did feel like, "Where does everyone go from here," you know?'
