Jesus v. Oyshi Table Corp.

Background

The plaintiffs moved for reconsideration of portions of the Court’s February 17, 2021 Opinion and Order, which had granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment. The underlying claims were brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law. The earlier order granted the defendants’ motion except as to a few select weeks worked by two plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs alternatively sought leave to file an interlocutory appeal, meaning an appeal before the district court case had ended. The plaintiffs first sought permission to file the motions on April 2, 2021, and filed the motion on April 28, 2021.

Motion for Reconsideration

The court held that the reconsideration motion was untimely under Local Civil Rule 6.3, which requires such a motion to be served within 14 days after the challenged order. The plaintiffs waited 44 days to seek permission to file the motion and 70 days to file the motion itself. The plaintiffs attributed the delay to their attorney’s lack of awareness of the February 17 order, remote work at the law firm, and health issues involving attorneys at the firm. The court found that the plaintiffs were aware of the February 17 order by March 15, 2021, when they requested an extension of the deadline for pretrial filings, but did not request an extension of the reconsideration deadline.

The court therefore denied reconsideration on timeliness grounds. It added that the motion would also have been denied on the merits. The plaintiffs argued that the court had improperly discredited their declarations and had overlooked their punch-in and punch-out records. The court said it had not discredited the declarations, and that the plaintiffs had already made the declaration argument when opposing partial summary judgment. The court also declined to consider the punch records because the plaintiffs had not submitted them in opposition to summary judgment and had chosen not to submit payroll records despite being asked about them at oral argument. The court stated that reconsideration could not be used to present evidence or arguments that could have been submitted earlier.

Interlocutory Appeal

The court also denied leave to file an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). That statute permits an immediate appeal from a nonfinal order only when the order involves a controlling legal question with substantial grounds for disagreement and an immediate appeal could materially advance the end of the litigation.

The court found that the plaintiffs did not identify a pure legal question that an appeals court could decide without studying the factual record. Instead, their arguments focused on narrow factual disputes about hours worked and the treatment of their declarations. The court also found no substantial disagreement about the law because it had not ruled that the declarations were inadmissible; its earlier decision had relied on the plaintiffs’ admissions, their failure to provide evidence contradicting the defendants’ payroll records, and their failure to explain how their evidence showed violations for the relevant periods. The court further rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that an immediate appeal was justified because it might allow all claims to be tried together.

Disposition

Judge John P. Cronan denied the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration and, alternatively, leave to file an interlocutory appeal. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motions at Docket Numbers 97, 98, and 101. The court reminded the parties that their proposed joint pretrial order and other pretrial filings were due May 17, 2021.