Local 1180, Communications Workers Of America, AFL-CIO v. City Of New York
- Stewart Aaron
- 1:17-cv-03048
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Local 1180 v. City of New York, Judge Aaron approved settlement procedures and ordered a limited payroll report after payments.
Settlement-class members, plaintiffs’ counsel, and the City defendants are affected. Settlement-class members receive the agreed back-pay and salary-related payments, while the City must provide a limited payroll report to plaintiffs’ counsel after payment.
What happened
In Local 1180, Communications Workers Of America, AFL-CIO v. City Of New York, the parties jointly asked the court to approve several agreements for carrying out their settlement. The agreements addressed back-pay payments, lists of eligible settlement-class members, legal-fee deductions, salary information, and related deadlines.
The parties disagreed about whether the City had to give the plaintiffs’ lawyers a payroll report before back-pay checks were issued and whether the report had to itemize each employee’s deductions. The plaintiffs’ lawyers said the settlement required this information to help prevent payment errors. The City argued that the information was not available before payment and that itemized deductions would invade employees’ financial privacy.
Judge Stewart D. Aaron approved the parties’ agreed settlement procedures and ruled that settlement-class members have a right to financial privacy. He directed the City to provide the plaintiffs’ lawyers, after payment, a report listing each member’s last name, first name, employee number, payroll distribution code, pay date, gross pay amount, and net pay.
The detailed version
- Local 1180, Communications Workers Of America, AFL-CIO v. City Of New York · No. 1:17-cv-03048
- Stewart Aaron
- Nov. 26, 2019
Background
The parties asked the court to approve agreed measures for carrying out an existing settlement. The measures concerned back-pay payments to settlement-class members who submitted releases by specified deadlines, amendments to settlement appendices, calculations and payment of back pay, the identification of legal-fee deductions on pay stubs, payment of legal fees, production of salary and placement information for Administrative Managers NM, and payment of new salary rates and retroactive pay.
Dispute over payroll information
The parties could not resolve a dispute about Paragraph 11(i) of the Stipulation of Settlement. That provision stated that the City would distribute back pay, handle applicable taxes, deductions, and withholdings, and send plaintiffs’ counsel a payroll report stating the amount each eligible plaintiff would be paid, including deductions.
Plaintiffs’ counsel argued that this required the City to provide a report before payment and to include deduction information. The City responded that deduction information was generated by employing agencies only after payment was processed. It offered to provide a report after payment containing the employee’s name, employee number, payroll distribution code, pay date, gross pay, deduction amount, and net pay. The City opposed itemized deductions, citing privacy concerns and stating that employees would receive the information on their pay stubs.
Ruling
The court approved the parties’ consensual resolution of the settlement issues described in the joint submission. On the payroll-report dispute, Judge Stewart D. Aaron stated that settlement-class members have a right to financial privacy and that plaintiffs’ counsel did not have the consent of all class members for disclosure of their financial information. The court declined the plaintiffs’ position and found that the defendants’ position was consistent with the class members’ privacy rights and the settlement terms.
The court ordered the defendants to send plaintiffs’ counsel a payroll report for each settlement-class member after payment. The report must contain the last name, first name, employee number, payroll distribution code, pay date, gross pay amount, and net pay. The ruling did not require the itemized disclosure sought by plaintiffs’ counsel.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.