Kemp-Smith v. Del Friscos of New York, LLC
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:20-cv-08802
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Kemp-Smith v. Del Friscos, Judge Broderick ordered the parties to submit their proposed wage-law settlement for fairness review and postponed the conference indefinitely.
The plaintiffs and Del Friscos of New York, LLC, whose proposed wage-case settlement and any attorney’s-fee request had to be submitted for court review.
What happened
In Kemp-Smith v. Del Friscos of New York, LLC, the parties told the court that they had reached a settlement in a Fair Labor Standards Act wage case. The court explained that this type of settlement requires court or Department of Labor approval before the claims can be privately settled with prejudice.
The court ordered the parties to submit the settlement terms within 30 days, along with a joint letter of no more than five pages explaining why the agreement was fair and reasonable. If the agreement included attorney’s fees, the parties also had to provide factual support, including billing records for each attorney. The court did not approve the settlement in this order.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick also postponed the June 3, 2021 conference without setting a new date. The order required further submissions so the court could review the settlement; it did not decide the underlying wage claims.
The detailed version
- Kemp-Smith v. Del Friscos of New York, LLC · No. 1:20-cv-08802
- Vernon Broderick
- June 1, 2021
Background
The parties advised the court that they had reached a settlement in this Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) case. The opinion states that private settlement of FLSA claims with prejudice requires approval by the district court or the Department of Labor. The court therefore had to determine whether the proposed settlement was a fair and reasonable compromise of disputed issues.
Required Settlement Submissions
The court stated that it would consider the total circumstances, including:
- The plaintiff’s possible recovery range;
- The burdens and expenses the settlement could help the parties avoid in proving their claims and defenses;
- The seriousness of the litigation risks;
- Whether experienced counsel reached the agreement through arm’s-length bargaining; and
- The possibility of fraud or collusion.
The court also stated that attorney’s fees must be assessed separately. If the settlement included attorney’s fees, the parties had to provide factual support for the award, including contemporaneous billing records identifying each attorney’s date, hours, and work performed.
Order and Effect
The court ordered the parties to provide the settlement terms within 30 days. It also ordered them to submit a joint letter of no more than five pages explaining why the settlement was fair and reasonable, including information about the five listed factors. The order did not approve or reject the settlement and did not resolve the underlying FLSA claims.
Judge Vernon S. Broderick further ordered that the conference scheduled for June 3, 2021, be adjourned without a new date. The opinion does not state what the parties’ proposed settlement terms were or whether the court later approved them.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.