Zhou v. Heydari, Inc.

Background

This Fair Labor Standards Act wage-and-hour case involved QiuHua Zhou as plaintiff and Heydari Inc. doing business as Heydari Fashion and Heydari DC, Lowan Fashion, Inc., Mariam Heydari, and Zhongxin Wang as defendants. The parties consented to Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave’s jurisdiction to review their proposed settlement. They submitted a joint motion supporting the settlement, the proposed settlement agreement, a damages calculation, and plaintiff’s counsel’s billing records and costs for review under the requirement that certain Fair Labor Standards Act settlements receive court approval.

In response to an earlier court order, Zhou also provided her retainer agreement with counsel in English and Chinese, along with documentation of costs. The court said it appeared that Zhou had executed the retainer agreement in Chinese, leading it to infer that Chinese was her primary language. The proposed settlement agreement itself was in English and did not state that it had been translated into Chinese for Zhou.

Court’s Action

The court ordered Zhou’s counsel to provide, by May 19, 2025, confirmation that the settlement agreement was translated into Chinese for Zhou’s benefit before execution. The order did not approve or reject the proposed settlement. The classification is procedural because the order addressed the court’s review of a proposed settlement rather than deciding the underlying wage-and-hour claims.