Christmas came early for strippers at Rick's Cabaret in New York City after Manhattan Federal Court Judge Paul Engelmayer ruled on Friday in favor of a class-action lawsuit filed by the sexy dancers and awarded them $10.8 million damage.

Although there were only 50 dancers who filed in 2009 the lawsuit, the club, located on W. 33^rd Street, employed 1,900 strippers during that 12-year period 2005 through 2012, giving the workers an average of more than $5,600 each.

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It would be easy to compute the pro-rated share of each stripper since the club, which is a few blocks away from the iconic Empire State Building, uses an electronic fingerprint scanner to track the dancers' entry and exit and number of hours worked, according to the New York Times.

The entertainers sought not only minimum wages but also the 10 percent of the $20 performance fee that the club pocketed from customer who paid the dancers using credit cards for each lap dance or table dance done in the semi-private rooms of Rick's Cabaret. The club also charged the customers an additional $100 for every 15-minute use of the semi-private rooms, plus another $4 customer's fee, reports New York Daily News.

The club defended its policy of not paying the strippers the minimum wage because they receive performance fees, but the judge rejected the club's argument since the fee was paid directly to the dancers, but it even pocketed $2 when the customer paid using credit card.

The $10.8 million windfall could even become larger to $18.8 million as there is another complaint filed by the strippers over a $60 fee that they must pay to the club for each shift. E. Michelle Drake, a lawyer from Minneapolis who represented the strippers and a partner in the Nichols Kaster law firm, said, "This is the beginning of a much larger number for them.

However, the club isn't just releasing any payments yet because it has appealed an earlier ruling made by Engelmayer in 2013 that the dancers are employees and not independent contractors. RCBI Hospitality, the parent company of Rick's Cabaret, said in a statement that it plans to appeal the court's decision once the whole case is finished.

TagsRick's Cabaret, strippers, New York City