Rosario v. Marper Terminal Services Corp.
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:24-cv-04511
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Joel Rosario v. Marper Terminal Services, Judge Broderick approved the Fair Labor Standards Act settlement and dismissed the action with prejudice.
Joel Rosario, Marper Terminal Services Corp., Ports America, Inc., Pedro Rodriguez, and their attorneys were affected. The settlement resolved Rosario’s asserted FLSA and New York Labor Law claims; the court’s dismissal with prejudice ended the action while preserving jurisdiction solely to enforce the settlement.
What happened
In Joel Rosario v. Marper Terminal Services Corp., the parties asked the court to approve their settlement of Rosario’s claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law. The claims concerned overtime pay, retaliation, spread-of-hours pay, and wage notices and statements.
Rosario said his possible unpaid-wage recovery was $80,701.50. The agreement provided $80,000, with $27,421.67 going to attorney’s fees and costs and $52,578.34 going to Rosario. The defendants disputed the hours Rosario said he worked and whether Ports America could be held responsible for claims against Marper.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick found the settlement and its remaining terms fair and reasonable, including the attorney’s fees and costs. He approved the agreement, dismissed the action with prejudice, retained jurisdiction only to enforce the settlement, and directed the Clerk to close the case.
The detailed version
- Rosario v. Marper Terminal Services Corp. · No. 1:24-cv-04511
- Vernon Broderick
- Sept. 18, 2025
Background
The parties jointly moved for approval of a settlement in this Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) case. Because the parties had not obtained approval from the Department of Labor, the court reviewed whether the settlement was fair and reasonable before approving it.
The complaint asserted five claims: overtime violations under the FLSA; overtime violations under the New York Labor Law; retaliation under the FLSA; violations of New York’s spread-of-hours pay requirements; and violations of New York’s wage-notice and wage-statement requirements.
Settlement Amount
The settlement provided for a total payment of $80,000. Rosario stated that, if he prevailed, his unpaid-wage recovery would be approximately $80,701.50. After deducting $27,421.67 in attorney’s fees and costs, his actual recovery would be $52,578.34, or approximately 65% of the unpaid-wage estimate. Including potential liquidated damages, the court identified a total possible recovery of $161,403.00, making Rosario’s actual recovery approximately 32.58% of that amount.
The court found the settlement amount reasonable in light of the litigation risks, including a pending motion to dismiss. The defendants’ position was that Rosario worked substantially fewer hours than alleged and was employed only by Marper Terminal Service Corp., not Ports America, Inc. Ports also argued that it hired Marper as a third-party contractor and therefore could not be liable for claims by a Marper employee against Marper. Rosario agreed that the settlement was not an admission of liability or wrongdoing.
The court found no indication of fraud or collusion and concluded that the agreement resulted from arm’s-length negotiations between experienced counsel. The court also found the remaining terms reasonable, including a release limited to FLSA and New York Labor Law claims and a non-disparagement provision that allowed Rosario to make truthful statements about his work experience and litigation.
Attorney’s Fees and Costs
The settlement allocated $27,421.67 to Rosario’s counsel, including $26,666.67 in attorney’s fees. The court noted that the fee request was one-third of Rosario’s total recovery, a percentage routinely approved in FLSA cases.
The billing records showed that attorney Delmas A. Costin, Jr. billed 42.6 hours at $500 per hour, a law clerk billed 62.8 hours at $175 per hour, and a paralegal billed one hour at $125 per hour. The court found the rates and hours reasonable. The lodestar calculation—the reasonable hourly rates multiplied by the reasonable hours worked—totaled $32,392.89, which was greater than the amount requested under the settlement. The court therefore found the requested fees and costs fair and reasonable.
Disposition
The court approved the settlement agreement. It dismissed the action with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a), retained jurisdiction solely to enforce the settlement agreement, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the action.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.