Aucacama v. CP Prince St LLC
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:19-cv-04245
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Aucacama v. CP Prince St LLC, Judge Caproni approved a $22,000 wage settlement and ordered the case closed.
The order affected Jorge Manuel Aucacama, the named defendants, and the lawyers whose settlement and fee allocation the Court reviewed and approved.
What happened
In Aucacama v. CP Prince St LLC, Jorge Manuel Aucacama brought wage and overtime claims against CP Prince St LLC and the other defendants, individually and for similarly situated people.
The proposed settlement provided a total recovery of $22,000, including $7,333.33 for the plaintiff’s lawyers. The court compared that recovery with the plaintiff’s estimated unpaid wages, overtime, and potential full-value claims.
Judge Caproni found the settlement fair and reasonable, including the lawyers’ fees after reviewing their hourly rates, time entries, contingency risk, and the result obtained. She directed the Clerk of Court to close the case.
The detailed version
- Aucacama v. CP Prince St LLC · No. 1:19-cv-04245
- Valerie Caproni
- May 5, 2020
Background
Jorge Manuel Aucacama sued CP Prince St LLC, doing business as Coco Pazzo, Alessandro Bandini, Pino Doe, Joseph Essa, and Giuseppe Loungo. He sued individually and on behalf of others similarly situated. The opinion concerns the parties’ proposed settlement of wage-and-overtime claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal wage law.
Counsel submitted the proposed settlement and supporting materials for court approval under the Second Circuit’s settlement-review requirements. The agreement provided for a total recovery of $22,000, with one-third—$7,333.33—allocated to Aucacama’s counsel. Aucacama estimated that he was owed approximately $9,855 in unpaid wages and overtime and that his claims, assuming full recovery, were worth approximately $37,191.
Attorney’s Fees
The Court found that counsel’s requested hourly rates were unreasonable and determined that reasonable rates were $400 per hour for Michael Faillace, $275 per hour for Finn Dusenbery and Jesse Barton, and $100 per hour for a paralegal. The Court found that the number of hours spent bringing and settling the case was generally reasonable, although somewhat high for a routine matter.
Using counsel’s time entries and the Court-determined rates, the requested fee represented approximately a 2.5 multiplier of the lodestar—the reasonable hours multiplied by reasonable hourly rates. The Court found that this multiplier was at the upper end of what was reasonable, but concluded that the one-third contingency fee and multiplier were reasonable because the result was excellent, Aucacama would recover approximately twice his actual damages, counsel assumed the risks of contingent representation, and counsel faced added costs from recovering fees over a six-month payment period.
Ruling
Judge Valerie Caproni approved the proposed settlement agreement as fair and reasonable. The Court directed the Clerk of Court to close the case. The order approved the settlement; it did not decide the underlying wage claims after a trial or other merits determination.
Disposition
The proposed settlement was approved as fair and reasonable, and the case was ordered closed.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.