Ahmed v. CITY OF NEW YORK
- Sidney Stein
- 1:17-cv-03044
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Ahmed v. CITY OF NEW YORK, Judge Stein dismissed plaintiffs’ attorney-fee motion without prejudice because settlement results remained unclear.
The ruling affects Sanwar Ahmed, the class members in the settlement, plaintiffs’ attorneys Brown Rudnick LLP and the Urban Justice Center, and the City of New York. It did not decide the amount of attorney’s fees; it dismissed the fee motion without prejudice.
What happened
In Ahmed v. CITY OF NEW YORK, mobile food vendors sued the City of New York over seizures of vending equipment without property vouchers. The parties later settled, with payments for eligible class members and an agreement to address attorney’s fees separately.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys asked the court to award fees and expenses. But the deadline for class members to submit claims had been extended, so the court did not yet know how many people would receive payments, how much they would receive, or how any remaining settlement money would be distributed.
Judge Stein dismissed the attorney-fee motion without prejudice because the available information was insufficient to evaluate the lawyers’ fee request in relation to the results obtained. After the settlement funds are distributed, the parties may submit an agreed fee amount or plaintiffs may renew their motion.
The detailed version
- Ahmed v. CITY OF NEW YORK · No. 1:17-cv-03044
- Sidney Stein
- Nov. 4, 2020
Background
Sanwar Ahmed, individually and on behalf of a class, brought claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 against the City of New York. The complaint alleged that the City and New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene inspectors seized mobile food-vending equipment from vendors without proper permits without providing vouchers that would allow the vendors to retrieve the equipment. The claims invoked the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments and New York law.
The parties later entered into a settlement providing a total settlement amount of $188,531. Eligible class members were to receive at least $585 and up to $1,000 for individual damages claims. Ahmed was to receive $2,501 for damages and an incentive award. The settlement also provided that the parties would negotiate in good faith about reasonable attorney’s fees for Brown Rudnick LLP and the Urban Justice Center, with plaintiffs allowed to apply to the court if the parties could not agree.
The court approved the settlement in August 2019. The parties did not agree on fees, and plaintiffs’ counsel moved for reasonable attorney’s fees and expenses in November 2019. The court later extended the deadline for class members to submit claim forms until February 20, 2021 after relatively few claim forms had been submitted.
Court’s analysis
Under the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act, a court may award a reasonable fee to a prevailing party in an action enforcing section 1983. The court explained that a fee award generally begins with the lodestar: the reasonable number of hours worked multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. The court may adjust that amount based on case-specific factors, including the quantity and quality of the relief obtained. The party seeking fees must establish entitlement to the award and document the hours and rates.
The court could not yet evaluate the relationship between the requested fee and the class’s success. The settlement required the claims administrator to distribute $585 to each class member who filed a claim, followed by a possible supplemental distribution of up to $415. Because the claim deadline had been extended, the court did not know how many class members would be compensated or how much each would receive.
The settlement also provided that, after the supplemental distribution, the parties would negotiate in good faith about distributing any remaining settlement funds, subject to court approval. That process had not yet occurred. The court therefore concluded that it lacked information needed to rule on the fee motion.
Disposition
The court dismissed plaintiffs’ motion for attorney’s fees without prejudice. After all claims have been filed and all settlement funds have been distributed under the settlement, the parties may submit an agreed attorney-fee amount for approval, or plaintiffs may renew their fee motion.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.