Damian v. 5060 Auto Service, Inc.
- Analisa Torres
- 1:19-cv-09226
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Damian v. 5060 Auto Service, Judge Torres approved the parties’ wage-settlement agreement and awarded the agreed attorney’s fees and expenses.
Valentin Damian, 5060 Auto Service, Inc., Leonid Bruk, and Damian’s counsel were directly affected by approval of the settlement; the case was closed.
What happened
In Damian v. 5060 Auto Service, Inc., Valentin Damian sued 5060 Auto Service, Inc. and Leonid Bruk over allegedly unpaid minimum and overtime wages under federal and New York law. The parties reached a settlement and asked the court to approve it.
The agreement provided Damian $24,616.47 and his counsel $12,124.53 in fees plus $259 in expenses, from a total settlement of $37,000. The court found the settlement fair and reasonable after considering the disputed hours, the defendants’ financial records, litigation risks, mediation, and the agreement’s limited release of claims.
Judge Torres granted the motion to approve the settlement and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case. She did not change the agreed fee and expense award, although she used lower hourly rates to calculate the attorneys’ reasonable lodestar amount.
The detailed version
- Damian v. 5060 Auto Service, Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-09226
- Analisa Torres
- June 25, 2020
Background
Valentin Damian sued 5060 Auto Service, Inc., doing business as 5060 Auto Service, Inc., and Leonid Bruk. He alleged that the defendants failed to pay minimum and overtime wages required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL). After the parties reached a settlement, they asked the court to approve the agreement.
The settlement resolved Damian’s FLSA claims. The parties separately agreed to resolve the NYLL claims, and the court stated that the separate NYLL agreement did not require approval under the rule discussed in the opinion.
Settlement Approval
The total settlement was $37,000. It allocated $24,616.47 to Damian and $12,124.53 to his counsel as attorney’s fees, plus $259 for expenses. Damian had estimated that his FLSA back-wage recovery would be approximately $50,826. The defendants disputed how many hours Damian worked and submitted tax returns and financial records to argue that they could not pay a significant judgment. The parties also said that settlement would avoid the costs and burdens of further litigation and trial.
The settlement resulted from an in-person mediation conducted after extensive negotiations between experienced attorneys. The court found no indication of fraud or collusion. It also found that the release was limited to federal wage-and-hour claims arising in the litigation and that the agreement contained neither a confidentiality provision nor a non-disparagement provision. Applying the factors used to evaluate FLSA settlements, the court found the agreement fair and reasonable.
Attorney’s Fees and Expenses
The court separately reviewed the requested attorney’s fees. Counsel requested one-third of the settlement, or $12,124.53, plus $259 in expenses. Counsel’s records showed 38.43 hours of work, with hourly rates of $450 for attorney Michael Faillace, $350 for associate Clifford Tucker, and $100 for paralegals.
The court found that the rates for Faillace and Tucker were higher than the usual rates in the district. For purposes of calculating the lodestar—the hours worked multiplied by reasonable hourly rates—the court reduced their rates to $400 and $300 per hour and calculated a lodestar of $9,589. The requested fee was approximately 1.26 times that amount. The court nevertheless did not disturb the fee-and-expense award agreed to in the settlement.
Ruling
Judge Analisa Torres granted the parties’ motion for settlement approval. The Clerk of Court was directed to close the case.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.