Ramirez v. 400 West 23rd Street Restaurant Corp.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:19-cv-10571
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Ramirez v. 400 West 23rd Street Restaurant Corp., Judge Caproni lifted the stay and ordered mediation and information exchanges in this Fair Labor Standards Act case.
Pedro Ramirez, the defendants, and the other parties identified in the case were affected by the court’s mediation, information-exchange, and scheduling requirements.
What happened
Ramirez v. 400 West 23rd Street Restaurant Corp. is a Fair Labor Standards Act case brought by Pedro Ramirez on behalf of himself and others similarly situated. The court had stayed the case after the restaurant corporation filed for bankruptcy, and the parties later reported that the bankruptcy case had been dismissed.
The court referred the case to mediation before the case-management conference and required mediation to be scheduled within 60 days. Within four weeks, the parties had to exchange documents about Ramirez’s duties, wages, hours, and compensation; Ramirez also had to provide a spreadsheet of claimed underpayments and damages, and the defendants had to provide financial information if they planned to claim they could not pay.
Judge Valerie Caproni lifted the stay, kept the defendants’ deadline to answer or otherwise respond paused until 30 days after mediation ends, and required the parties to notify the court whether mediation produced a settlement. The order did not decide the underlying wage claims.
The detailed version
- Ramirez v. 400 West 23rd Street Restaurant Corp. · No. 1:19-cv-10571
- Valerie Caproni
- Nov. 12, 2020
Background
Pedro Ramirez brought this Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) case against 400 West 23rd Street Restaurant Corp., doing business as The Rail Line Diner, Irene Nictas, and Teddy Nictas. The caption identifies Ramirez as suing on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated. The opinion does not decide whether the case may proceed as a collective or class action.
On March 24, 2020, the defendants informed the court that 400 West 23rd Street Restaurant Corp. had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On March 25, 2020, the court directed the Clerk of Court to stay the case. On November 11, 2020, the parties informed the court that the bankruptcy case had been dismissed.
Court-Ordered Mediation and Information Exchange
Because the court’s pilot program requires FLSA cases on its docket to undergo mediation, the court referred this case to mediation under Local Civil Rule 83.9. Mediation had to be scheduled within 60 days after the order was entered and had to occur before the case-management conference under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b).
Within four weeks after docket entry, the parties had to confer and provide information to facilitate mediation:
- Both sides had to produce existing documents describing Ramirez’s duties and responsibilities. - Both sides had to produce existing records of wages paid and hours worked, including payroll records, time sheets, work schedules, wage statements, and wage notices. - Ramirez had to provide a spreadsheet of alleged underpayments and other damages. - The defendants had to produce existing documents describing compensation policies or practices. - If the defendants intended to claim an inability to pay, they had to produce proof of their financial condition, including tax records, business records, or other documents showing their financial status.
If the parties reached a settlement, the order required them to submit a joint statement explaining the proposed settlement, including any attorney-fee provision, and why the settlement should be approved as fair and reasonable. The order cited the Second Circuit’s decision in Cheeks v. Freeport Pancake House, Inc. regarding approval of FLSA settlements.
Other Directions and Disposition
If mediation did not produce a settlement, the parties had to meet and confer under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f) in preparation for the initial pretrial conference. Counsel who had appeared had to serve the order on the other parties’ attorneys or, if counsel’s identity was unknown, send it directly to the party.
The order stayed the defendants’ deadline to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint, if they had not already done so, until 30 days after all mediation in the case concluded. The parties also had to submit a joint letter within one week after mediation ended stating whether they had settled.
The court ordered the Clerk of Court to lift the existing stay. This was a procedural case-management order: it arranged mediation, required limited information exchanges, set filing-related deadlines, and did not resolve the merits of Ramirez’s FLSA claims. Judge Valerie Caproni signed the order on November 12, 2020.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.