Thomas v. River Greene Construction Group LLC
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:17-cv-06954
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Thomas v. River Greene Construction Group LLC, Judge Engelmayer adopted a damages recommendation, denied a pending motion as moot, and closed the case.
The plaintiffs and the defendants involved in the default judgments were affected by the adopted damages recommendation; the court had previously granted summary judgment to ACM and Abrahams.
What happened
Thomas v. River Greene Construction Group LLC involved wage claims under federal and New York law against several defendants. The court had already entered default judgments on liability against four defendants and had entered summary judgment for two other defendants.
A magistrate judge then issued a report recommending how to resolve the damages inquiry involving the defendants who had defaulted. No party filed timely objections, so the court reviewed the report for clear error rather than reconsidering it from the beginning.
Judge Engelmayer found no facial error and adopted the report in full. He also ruled that the motion at docket 123 was denied as moot and directed the Clerk to close the case; the parties' failure to object waived appellate review under the opinion's stated terms.
The detailed version
- Thomas v. River Greene Construction Group LLC · No. 1:17-cv-06954
- Paul Engelmayer
- Nov. 14, 2019
Background
Hasely Thomas, Yeandeo Dadbahal, and Baldwin Thomas sued River Greene Construction Group LLC, Bringing Best Management LLC, Curtis Antoine, Jonathan Kranzler, Akeida Capital Management, LLC doing business as ACM Contracting, LLC, and Harvey Abrahams. They asserted claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal wage law, and the New York Labor Law, including claims for unpaid overtime and earned wages.
The court had entered summary judgment for ACM and Abrahams because they were not the plaintiffs' employers under either wage statute. The court later entered default judgments on liability against River Greene, Bringing Best Management, Curtis Antoine, and Jonathan Kranzler, who had been served but had not appeared. The court referred the damages issue involving those defendants to Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox for an inquest.
Report and Recommendation
Judge Fox issued a Report and Recommendation on October 25, 2019. Under the governing review procedure, timely specific objections would have required the district judge to review the challenged portions independently. Because no party timely objected, the court reviewed the report for clear error on the face of the record.
Ruling
Judge Engelmayer stated that he had carefully reviewed Judge Fox's report and found no facial error in its conclusions. The court therefore adopted the Report and Recommendation in its entirety. The opinion text does not reproduce the report's damages calculations or state a damages amount.
The court also stated that each party's failure to object within the required period waived appellate review. It directed the Clerk of Court to deny the motion pending at docket 123 as moot and to close the case.
Disposition
The Report and Recommendation was adopted in its entirety. The pending docket-123 motion was denied as moot, and the case was closed. The opinion does not state any separate damages amount in its own text.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.