Singh v. Pelican Management, Inc.

Background

Paul Anthony Singh and Eliot Kaca sued Pelican Management, Inc., Harbor One Company, LLC, and Phillip Goldfarb. They alleged that the Defendants allowed them to work more than 40 hours per week without paying the required overtime premium under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL). They also alleged violations involving wage notices and wage statements.

The Defendants served separate offers of judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 before discovery closed. Kaca accepted an offer of $10,238.60, and Singh accepted an offer of $7,952.02; both amounts excluded costs, disbursements, and attorneys’ fees. The Plaintiffs accepted the offers, and the court approved them. The remaining dispute concerned the amount of attorneys’ fees and costs.

Fee request and legal standard

Plaintiffs’ counsel requested $12,650 in attorneys’ fees and $402 in costs. The request was based on 23 hours of work at an hourly rate of $550. The court applied the lodestar method, which calculates a presumptively reasonable fee by multiplying a reasonable hourly rate by the reasonable number of hours worked. The party seeking fees bears the burden of showing that the hours and rate are reasonable.

Because the Plaintiffs prevailed on their FLSA and NYLL claims through the accepted offers of judgment, the court concluded that they were entitled to reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. The court also reviewed contemporaneous time records listing the dates, hours, and work performed.

Hourly rate

The court found that $550 per hour was too high for this straightforward overtime case. It noted that experienced wage-and-hour attorneys in the Southern District of New York generally receive between $300 and $400 per hour, and that the case involved no complex or novel issues, settled before discovery closed, and required only 23 hours of work.

The court reduced the hourly rate to $450. It found that rate reasonable for counsel, who had more than 30 years of experience and had previously received awards at that rate in the district.

Hours and costs

The court approved all 23 hours. It found that the time descriptions were detailed, that the work was necessary and effectively performed, and that there was no duplication or block billing. The Defendants did not challenge any individual time entry.

The court also granted the Plaintiffs’ request for $402 in costs, representing the filing fee.

Defendants’ fee argument and disposition

The Defendants argued that the award should be limited to 30% or one-third of the amounts the Plaintiffs received through the offers of judgment. The court rejected that proposed proportionality limit, explaining that fee-shifting statutes can produce attorneys’ fees disproportionate to a plaintiff’s recovery and that the FLSA’s purposes support using a lodestar calculation.

The court granted the Plaintiffs’ request for attorneys’ fees and costs. It awarded $10,350 in attorneys’ fees, calculated as 23 hours multiplied by $450 per hour, plus $402 in costs, for a total recovery of $10,752. The court also denied the request for leave to file a sur-reply, declined to consider the unauthorized sur-reply submissions, directed the Clerk to terminate the listed motions, and closed the case.