Flores v. Masterpiece Caterers Corp.
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:19-cv-04059
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Flores v. Masterpiece Caterers Corp., Judge Schofield approved the settlement, granted counsel’s $3,133.30 request, and directed the case closed.
The parties to the settlement, plaintiffs’ counsel, and the plaintiffs who were to receive the settlement remainder.
What happened
Flores v. Masterpiece Caterers Corp. concerned the parties’ proposed settlement of the plaintiff’s claims. The opinion does not describe the claims’ specific legal basis.
The parties first submitted a settlement agreement, but the court did not approve it because they had not provided billing records and the release terms were too broad. They later submitted billing records and an amended agreement.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield approved the amended settlement as fair and reasonable, granted plaintiffs’ counsel’s request for $3,133.30 excluding costs, directed that the remainder go to the plaintiffs, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case.
The detailed version
- Flores v. Masterpiece Caterers Corp. · No. 1:19-cv-04059
- Lorna Schofield
- Feb. 7, 2020
Background
On January 20, 2020, the parties filed a joint letter and settlement agreement. The court did not approve that agreement because the parties had not submitted billing records and because its proposed release terms were unreasonably broad.
On February 6, 2020, the parties filed a supplemental joint letter containing billing records and an amended settlement agreement.
Rulings
The court approved the amended settlement as fair and reasonable based on the nature and scope of the plaintiffs’ claims, as well as the risks and expenses of additional litigation.
The court granted plaintiffs’ counsel’s request for $3,133.30, exclusive of costs. It found that amount fair and reasonable because it was less than the lodestar calculation—the product of a reasonable hourly rate and the reasonable number of hours required—and was approximately one-third of the settlement. The court considered the quality of counsel, the risks of litigation, and the litigation’s magnitude and complexity.
The court ordered that the remainder of the settlement be distributed to the plaintiffs and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.