Sahiti v. Tarentum Ltd.
- Analisa Torres
- 1:19-cv-07377
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Sahiti v. Tarentum Ltd., Judge Torres denied Defendants’ motion to reconsider an earlier summary-judgment order in the wage case.
The ruling affects Blendi Sahiti and the Defendants by leaving the earlier summary-judgment order in place. Calabrese had obtained summary judgment, while the dispute over whether Tarentum employed Sahiti remained unresolved; the opinion does not state a separate final disposition for Camardi in this order.
What happened
In Sahiti v. Tarentum Ltd., Blendi Sahiti claimed that Tarentum, an entity doing business as the restaurant Ulivo, failed to pay him for several hours of work and failed to provide required wage statements and pay notices. He brought claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York law. Defendants asked the court to reconsider an earlier order that had partly granted and partly denied their request for summary judgment.
Defendants argued that the earlier order wrongly found factual disputes about whether Tarentum employed Sahiti, especially because the court had found that manager Manuela Calabrese was not individually his employer. They also challenged the evidence from Parma Employment Agency and repeated arguments seeking to exclude evidence about Sahiti’s telephone call and immigration status.
Judge Analisa Torres denied the motion for reconsideration. She held that Defendants had not identified a change in controlling law, overlooked facts, or a clear error. The earlier order therefore remained in place, including the finding that a jury could decide whether Tarentum employed Sahiti and the grant of summary judgment for Calabrese.
The detailed version
- Sahiti v. Tarentum Ltd. · No. 1:19-cv-07377
- Analisa Torres
- Mar. 4, 2022
Background
Blendi Sahiti sued Tarentum, Ltd., doing business as Ulivo, and Fabio Camardi and Manuela Calabrese. He alleged minimum-wage violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL), along with failures to provide wage statements and pay notices. Sahiti alleged that he worked as a busser at Ulivo for several hours on August 31, 2017, but was not paid. The Defendants disputed his account, and Ulivo’s records did not show that he worked that day.
In an earlier order, the Court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment as to Calabrese but denied summary judgment on whether Tarentum had an employer-employee relationship with Sahiti. The earlier order found factual disputes concerning whether Sahiti worked at Ulivo and whether Tarentum employed him under the FLSA and NYLL. Defendants moved for partial reconsideration under Local Civil Rule 6.3.
Legal standard
A motion for reconsideration is narrowly limited. The moving party must identify an intervening change in controlling law, newly available evidence, or a clear error or manifest injustice. The party must also show that the overlooked law or facts could reasonably have changed the earlier decision. Reconsideration is not a way to repeat arguments the court already considered.
Analysis
Defendants argued that the Court could not find Tarentum potentially liable as an employer while finding that Calabrese was not individually liable. The Court rejected that argument. Whether a company is an employer is a separate question from whether one of its employees is independently an employer who can be held personally liable. Thus, Calabrese’s lack of authority to hire or fire employees, control schedules, or maintain employment records did not prevent her actions from supporting a finding that Tarentum employed Sahiti.
The Court explained that, accepting Sahiti’s version of events for summary-judgment purposes, a reasonable factfinder could conclude that Tarentum employed him or allowed him to work. Sahiti alleged that he went to Ulivo, met Calabrese, followed instructions from her and another Ulivo employee, performed work for several hours, and was not paid. The conflicting accounts presented a credibility dispute for a jury, not an issue the Court could resolve on summary judgment. The Court therefore denied reconsideration on this issue.
The Court also denied reconsideration concerning Parma Employment Agency’s records. The records did not by themselves establish an employment relationship, but, together with Sahiti’s declaration, they provided more than a purely speculative basis for his account and supported sending the factual dispute to a jury.
Finally, the Court denied reconsideration of Defendants’ motions in limine. Those motions sought to bar evidence about Sahiti’s post-shift telephone call to Tarentum and his immigration status. The Court stated that Defendants were repeating arguments already rejected and that the requests were overbroad and premature at the summary-judgment stage.
Disposition
Judge Torres denied Defendants’ motion for reconsideration and directed the Clerk to terminate the motion at ECF No. 80. The opinion leaves the earlier order in place: summary judgment was granted as to Calabrese, while the factual dispute concerning Tarentum’s possible employer status remained for further proceedings. The opinion does not state a separate final disposition for Camardi in this reconsideration order.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.