Cajero Torres v. Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc.
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:19-cv-02532
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 15
In Cajero Torres v. Sushi Sushi, Judge Engelmayer partly granted plaintiffs’ motion in limine, dismissed Cortes’s claims, and entered limited default judgment.
Cajero Torres and Bautista obtained a default judgment limited to liability against Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc. and Harlem Sushi Inc. Cortes’s FLSA claims were dismissed with prejudice as untimely, and his NYLL claims were dismissed without prejudice. The ruling also barred defendants from calling Kristen Newland and Raul Morales as trial witnesses but did not exclude the defense documents at issue.
What happened
Cajero Torres v. Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc. involves claims by Ricardo Cajero Torres, Mario Bautista, and Manuel Diaz Cortes under federal and New York wage laws. They alleged that the defendants failed to pay required wages, overtime, certain additional compensation, reimbursements, and tips, and failed to provide required wage records and notices.
The court addressed three matters: plaintiffs’ request to exclude defense evidence, the timeliness of Cortes’s claims, and plaintiffs’ request for a default judgment against two corporate defendants whose lawyers had withdrawn. The court excluded testimony from two defense witnesses but did not exclude the defense documents. It ruled that Cortes’s federal wage claims were too late and declined to hear his related New York claims in this case. It also considered whether to dismiss the corporate defendants’ claims because plaintiffs filed their default-judgment motion one day late.
Judge Engelmayer dismissed Cortes’s federal claims as untimely and dismissed his New York claims without prejudice. He granted default judgment only as to liability, and only on Cajero Torres’s and Bautista’s claims against Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc. and Harlem Sushi Inc.; a later proceeding will address damages. The court did not dismiss the corporate defendants’ claims for failure to prosecute.
The detailed version
- Cajero Torres v. Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc. · No. 1:19-cv-02532
- Paul Engelmayer
- May 27, 2021
Background
Ricardo Cajero Torres and Mario Bautista began the case in March 2019. Manuel Diaz Cortes was added in the second amended complaint. The plaintiffs brought claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a federal wage law, and the New York Labor Law (NYLL). They alleged failures to pay minimum wages, overtime, additional NYLL compensation, work-related reimbursements, and tips or gratuities, as well as failures to provide required wage statements and notices.
The case was scheduled for discovery, but plaintiffs did not serve any discovery requests. Defendants nevertheless informally produced some documents. Defendants’ lawyers later withdrew, leaving Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc. and Harlem Sushi Inc. without legal representation. The court noted that corporations cannot represent themselves in federal court. Plaintiff’s motion for default judgment against those corporations was filed one day after the court-ordered deadline.
Motion in Limine
A motion in limine asks the court to decide before trial whether certain evidence may be used. Plaintiffs asked the court to exclude testimony from Kristen Newland and Raul Morales because defendants had not identified them during the required disclosure process. Plaintiffs also asked the court to exclude defense documents that they said had not been produced during discovery.
The court granted plaintiffs’ motion in limine in part as to the two witnesses. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, parties generally must identify witnesses and documents they may use, and Rule 37 allows the court to bar undisclosed evidence unless the failure was substantially justified or harmless. The court found that defendants had not identified Newland or Morales, had not explained the failure, and had not shown that their testimony was sufficiently important. The court also found that allowing the testimony could prejudice plaintiffs.
The court denied plaintiffs’ motion in limine in part as to the documents. Plaintiffs had not shown that defendants failed to identify the relevant categories of documents, and defendants had produced substantial material even though plaintiffs had not requested document production. The court therefore did not exclude the defense documents on that basis. It directed defendants to promptly provide plaintiffs with any intended trial evidence that had not yet been produced, in an accessible format. The court also stated that plaintiffs could use documents defendants had produced during discovery.
Cortes’s Claims
The second amended complaint alleged that Cortes worked for defendants between June 2013 and July 2016. Plaintiffs conceded that Cortes’s FLSA claims were time-barred. The court treated the limitations issue as a summary-judgment ruling made after notice and an opportunity for plaintiffs to provide evidence, even though defendants had not filed a formal summary-judgment motion.
The court dismissed Cortes’s FLSA claims with prejudice as untimely. Plaintiffs asked the court to hear Cortes’s NYLL claims under supplemental jurisdiction, which can allow a federal court to hear related state-law claims. The court declined to exercise that jurisdiction because the evidence concerning Cortes’s claims was sufficiently separate from the evidence concerning the other plaintiffs’ claims. Cortes’s NYLL claims were therefore dismissed without prejudice. The court explained that this type of dismissal does not bar those claims on the merits.
Default Judgment
Plaintiffs sought default judgment against Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc. and Harlem Sushi Inc. A default judgment is a judgment entered against a party that has failed to defend the case. The court rejected dismissal for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), despite its prior warning, because the filing was only one day late, appeared to result from a calendaring mistake, did not prejudice the defendants, and would do little to reduce the court’s workload.
After reviewing plaintiffs’ submissions under Rule 55, the court granted the motion for default judgment solely as to liability and solely on Cajero Torres’s and Bautista’s claims against Sushi Sushi Holdings Inc. and Harlem Sushi Inc. It did not enter default as to Cortes’s claims because those claims had been dismissed. The court directed that a separate damages proceeding, called an inquest, be held later.
Read the full 15-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.