Ramos v. Greenwich Catering Corp.

Background

The plaintiffs were Jose Ramos, Francis Rivera, and Guillermo Ignacio, each suing individually and on behalf of other similarly situated employees. The defendants were Greenwich Catering Corp. doing business as Turkiss; EB2, Inc. doing business as Turkiss; Mark Kohler, also known as Max; and Canturk Yilmaz, also known as John.

The case involved claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law. In an earlier order, the court adopted Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn’s report and recommendation on the plaintiffs’ motion for default judgment. That order granted in part and denied in part the default-judgment motion, awarded Ramos $53,816.80, Rivera $20,893.99, and Ignacio $26,784.00 in damages, and denied the plaintiffs’ application for attorneys’ fees and costs without prejudice to refiling with proper documentation.

The plaintiffs then filed a renewed, unopposed application for attorneys’ fees and costs. They requested $17,356.

Legal Standard

The Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law allow a prevailing plaintiff to recover reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. The court used the lodestar method, which generally calculates a fee by multiplying a reasonable hourly rate by a reasonable number of hours. The court reviewed counsel’s time records and considered whether the rates and hours were reasonable, including whether work was excessive, duplicative, or unnecessary.

Court’s Analysis

The plaintiffs requested hourly rates of $400 for Jian Hang, $300 for Lorena Duarte, and $250 for Zindzi Baugh Corbett. The court found Hang’s and Corbett’s rates consistent with the market for comparable employment cases. It found Duarte’s $300 rate unreasonably high given the simplicity of the issues and her rate in similar cases, and reduced her rate to $275 per hour.

The court reviewed the billed hours and accepted them except for specified reductions. It denied fees for time spent preparing the renewed fee application because that work could have been avoided if the application had been properly submitted with the default-judgment motion. It also disallowed time for preparing a notice of appearance and reviewing it, refiling the complaints because of counsel’s filing errors, work connected to the first application for entry of default, and portions of several entries the court found excessive or duplicative.

After these adjustments, the court awarded $11,605 in attorneys’ fees: $1,760 for 4.40 hours at $400 per hour and $9,845 for 35.80 hours at $275 per hour. The court also awarded $1,046 in costs, consisting of a $400 filing fee and $646 in service-of-process charges.

Disposition

The court awarded the plaintiffs attorneys’ fees and costs totaling $12,651. It directed that judgment be entered in accordance with this order and the earlier order adopting Judge Netburn’s report and recommendation, and instructed the Clerk to terminate the motion.