Peralta v. CB Hospitality and Events, LLC
- Gregory Woods
- 1:22-cv-10805
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Peralta v. CB Hospitality and Events, LLC, Judge Woods required more information before reviewing the parties’ proposed wage-and-hour settlement.
The plaintiffs, defendants, and plaintiffs’ counsel in the proposed settlement; the court required additional settlement and attorneys’ fee information before completing its review.
What happened
In Peralta v. CB Hospitality and Events, LLC, the parties asked the court to approve a proposed settlement that would end the plaintiffs’ claims permanently. The settlement included claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the federal wage-and-hour law.
The court said it must review the settlement to decide whether it is fair and reasonable, including whether the proposed attorneys’ fees are reasonable. The parties had not provided records showing how many hours the plaintiffs’ lawyer had billed, and the court also required information about what part of the settlement covered claims outside the wage-and-hour law.
Judge Gregory H. Woods ordered the parties to file a joint letter by September 6, 2024, identifying the amount attributed to the non-wage claims and attaching a sworn statement from plaintiffs’ counsel documenting billed hours. The opinion did not approve or reject the proposed settlement.
The detailed version
- Peralta v. CB Hospitality and Events, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-10805
- Gregory Woods
- Sept. 3, 2024
Background
The parties submitted a motion seeking permission to file a proposed settlement agreement. The proposed agreement would dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice. The opinion states that private settlements of claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal wage-and-hour law, require approval by the district court or the Department of Labor.
Court’s analysis
The court explained that it must review the proposed FLSA settlement for fairness and reasonableness. That review includes evaluating the reasonableness of the proposed attorneys’ fees. The court may use either a percentage-of-recovery method or a lodestar method. A lodestar calculation generally determines fees by examining the reasonable time spent and applicable hourly rates; the opinion states that the lodestar may also be used to check the reasonableness of a percentage-based fee award.
The parties’ motion did not include materials documenting the hours billed by plaintiffs’ counsel. The court stated that this documentation was necessary to perform a lodestar calculation, regardless of which fee-review method the court ultimately used.
Order
The court ordered the parties to file a joint letter by September 6, 2024, specifying what portion of the proposed settlement amount was attributable to the plaintiffs’ non-FLSA claims. The parties were directed to attach a sworn affidavit from plaintiffs’ counsel documenting the hours billed to the case and providing enough information for a lodestar calculation. The court stated that the other deadlines remained in effect. The opinion did not approve or reject the proposed settlement.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.