Mason v. Ethical Culture Fieldston School
- James Oetken
- 1:23-cv-01402
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
Mason v. Ethical Culture Fieldston School: Judge Oetken partly granted TCF’s lien motion for $48,957.50 and denied Plaintiffs’ discovery motion.
The Cochran Firm and Attorney Derek Sells received a $48,957.50 charging lien but not the requested automatic 40% contingency fee. The Plaintiffs’ discovery motion was denied. The Defendants’ objections to enforcement of the proposed settlement were rejected.
What happened
In Mason v. Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Attorney Derek Sells and The Cochran Firm sought to enforce a charging lien against a proposed settlement. They argued that the firm should receive an automatic 40% contingency fee.
The court found that the proposed settlement was never completed because the parties expected signed agreements, did not partly perform the agreement, and continued negotiating important terms. The firm could therefore not automatically collect the 40% fee, but it could receive payment based on the reasonable value of its work. The Plaintiffs also sought discovery.
Judge J. Paul Oetken adopted Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave’s recommendation in full. The Cochran Firm’s motion was granted in part and denied in part, resulting in a $48,957.50 charging lien against the settlement, and the Plaintiffs’ discovery motion was denied.
The detailed version
- Mason v. Ethical Culture Fieldston School · No. 1:23-cv-01402
- James Oetken
- July 7, 2025
Background
Attorney Derek Sells and The Cochran Firm (TCF) filed a motion to enforce a charging lien against a proposed settlement. A charging lien is a claim by an attorney for payment from money recovered in a case. TCF argued that it was entitled to an automatic 40% contingency fee. The parties later reached a superseding settlement.
Magistrate Judge Sarah L. Cave issued a Report and Recommendation on January 24, 2025. She recommended finding that TCF was not entitled to the automatic 40% fee because the proposed settlement was never completed, but that TCF was entitled to payment based on quantum meruit—the reasonable value of services provided. She also recommended an award calculated using a $500 hourly rate and a 10% reduction in TCF’s claimed hours because of block billing and internal-meeting time. TCF objected, and the Defendants also objected to the recommendation concerning whether the settlement was enforceable. The Defendants took no position on the charging lien itself.
Court’s Analysis
The court reviewed the recommendation independently and agreed with Judge Cave’s analysis. Applying New York law and the four-factor test from Winston v. Mediafare Entertainment Corp., the court considered whether the parties reserved the right not to be bound without a signed writing, whether they partly performed the agreement, whether they agreed to all material terms, and whether the agreement was the type usually put in writing.
The court concluded that three of the four factors weighed against enforcing the proposed settlement. Draft agreements stated that they would become effective when fully executed, and the Defendants said they intended to withhold payment until they had signed agreements. The parties did not take steps to partly perform the alleged agreement. Material terms, including a non-disparagement provision, continued to change through September 2022. The court also found that the parties’ emails showed ongoing negotiations rather than a completed agreement concerning the Plaintiffs’ individual settlements.
The court rejected TCF’s objections to the quantum meruit calculation. It found that Judge Cave properly considered Sells’s and TCF’s reputation, experience, and skill in using a $500 hourly rate. It also found reasonable the 10% deduction from TCF’s claimed hours because the billing records used block billing and included internal meetings. The court separately rejected Sells’s challenge to Judge Cave’s authorship based on her use of the word “we.”
Disposition
Judge J. Paul Oetken adopted Judge Cave’s Report and Recommendation in full. The Cochran Firm’s motion to enforce its charging lien was granted in part and denied in part: TCF received a charging lien against the settlement in the amount of $48,957.50, but not an automatic 40% contingency fee. The Plaintiffs’ motion for discovery was denied. The Clerk was directed to close the motion at Docket Number 77.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.