Lopes Chavez v. Besos Restaurant Bar & Loung Corp
- Barbara Moses
- 1:23-cv-09196
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Lopes Chavez v. Besos Restaurant, Judge Moses denied plaintiffs’ motion to enforce their settlement without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.
The ruling affected the plaintiffs’ attempt to enforce the settlement against the defendants. It left the motion denied without prejudice because the federal court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction; the opinion did not decide whether the defendants breached the agreement.
What happened
Lopes Chavez v. Besos Restaurant began as a lawsuit seeking unpaid minimum and overtime wages under federal and state law. The parties settled, and the court approved the settlement process and dismissed the case with prejudice, but it did not include the settlement terms in its order or retain jurisdiction to enforce them.
The plaintiffs asked the court to enforce the settlement, alleging that the defendants had not made the first three payments and might miss the final payment. The motion was unopposed, but the court explained that a federal court does not automatically keep authority to enforce a settlement after dismissing the underlying case.
Judge Moses denied the motion without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and directed the Clerk of Court to close the motion. The ruling treated the settlement as a contract requiring its own basis for federal jurisdiction.
The detailed version
- Lopes Chavez v. Besos Restaurant Bar & Loung Corp · No. 1:23-cv-09196
- Barbara Moses
- Mar. 24, 2025
Background
Plaintiffs sued Besos Restaurant Bar & Lounge Corp. and other defendants on October 19, 2023. They sought unpaid minimum and overtime wages, along with related relief, under the Fair Labor Standards Act and state law. The parties consented to jurisdiction before Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses.
The parties later jointly asked the court to approve a Settlement and Release Agreement under Cheeks v. Freeport Pancake House, Inc. On December 11, 2024, the court approved the settlement process and entered an order dismissing the case with prejudice. The stipulation of dismissal did not include or refer to the settlement agreement’s terms, the court did not itself order those terms, and the court did not retain jurisdiction to enforce the agreement.
Motion to Enforce
Plaintiffs moved on March 18, 2025, to enforce the agreement. They alleged that defendants had failed to make the first three settlement payments and believed defendants would also fail to make the fourth payment, due April 1, 2025. The motion was unopposed.
Court’s Analysis
Federal district courts have only the authority provided by the Constitution and federal statutes. A court does not automatically retain jurisdiction to enforce a settlement agreement merely because it handled and dismissed the original case. After dismissal, a motion to enforce a settlement is generally treated as a contract-breach claim that needs its own basis for federal jurisdiction.
The court found no such basis here. The opinion stated that there was no diversity jurisdiction. It also distinguished a prior decision in which the settlement agreement had been made a court order and the court had diversity jurisdiction. In this case, the settlement terms were not made a court order, either directly or indirectly. The agreement therefore remained a contract between the parties, and the circumstances surrounding the settlement and dismissal did not give the court authority to decide the contract dispute.
Disposition
Judge Moses denied plaintiffs’ motion to enforce the Settlement and Release Agreement, without prejudice, for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the motion at Docket 36. The order did not decide whether defendants breached the agreement or whether plaintiffs were entitled to the requested payments.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.