Puma v. Dream Team Partners, LLC
- Sarah Cave
- 1:19-cv-09824
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Puma v. Dream Team Partners, Judge Abrams directed the parties to address their reported wage-and-hour settlement.
German Puma, the other similarly situated plaintiffs, and Dream Team Partners, LLC and the other defendants were affected because the court required the parties to choose how to proceed with their reported settlement.
What happened
Puma v. Dream Team Partners, LLC is a wage-and-hour case in which the parties reported reaching an agreement after a settlement conference before Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave.
The court gave the parties until June 28, 2021, to choose how to proceed: consent to have Judge Cave handle future proceedings, file a voluntary dismissal without prejudice, or ask the court to review whether the settlement is fair and reasonable.
Judge Ronnie Abrams also warned that materials supporting a fairness review may become public and identified types of settlement terms the court will not approve, including overly broad claim waivers and bans on truthful negative statements about the defendants.
The detailed version
- Puma v. Dream Team Partners, LLC · No. 1:19-cv-09824
- Sarah Cave
- May 28, 2021
Background
The court stated that the parties had reported reaching an agreement to resolve this wage-and-hour action after a settlement conference before Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave. The opinion does not describe the settlement’s financial terms or state that the court had approved it.
The Court’s Directions
The court ordered the parties, by June 28, 2021, to take one of three actions:
- Consent to conducting all further proceedings before Judge Cave by filing the required consent form. The court noted that choosing not to proceed before Judge Cave would not have adverse substantive consequences.
- Submit a stipulation or notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
- 3. Submit a joint letter explaining why the settlement is fair and reasonable, together with supporting materials, including current billing records for the attorney’s fees and costs included in the settlement.
The court advised that materials on which it relies in deciding whether the settlement is fair may be placed on the public docket because judicial documents are generally presumed to be publicly accessible. It also stated that it would not approve agreements that broadly waive unrelated or unknown claims, or that bar plaintiffs from making negative statements about defendants without an exception for truthful statements about the plaintiffs’ experience litigating the case.
Disposition
Judge Ronnie Abrams issued an order directing the parties to select one of these three courses of action. The order did not itself approve or reject the settlement and did not enter a dismissal.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.