Sapia v. Home Box Office, Inc.

Background

The plaintiffs were Parking Production Assistants who claimed that Home Box Office, Inc. retaliated against them in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law. They alleged that HBO did not hire them for later productions because they had participated in an earlier lawsuit seeking overtime pay. A settlement in that earlier case released claims arising before October 1, 2016.

The court had previously dismissed the claims of most original plaintiffs because their complaint did not show that the alleged retaliation occurred after October 1, 2016. The dismissal was without prejudice to filing a complaint that corrected the problem. The case later proceeded with a second amended complaint. The court ordered each plaintiff to provide evidence of specific efforts to obtain HBO work and alleged denials, because each plaintiff had to establish an individual initial showing of retaliation rather than rely on group allegations.

The opinion identified 15 plaintiffs as remaining when HBO filed its motion. It later dismissed or otherwise removed additional plaintiffs, leaving 13 plaintiffs whose claims were not dismissed at this stage: Michael Sapia, Andrea Barnes, Allan Bennett, Anthony Birkbeck, Kendal Brazel, Alexander Campbell, Raynier Delgadillo, Shierba Jackson, Miguel Morel, Garnett Morgan, Christian Pello, Gary Phifer, and Ali Muhammad.

HBO’s Summary-Judgment Motion

Summary judgment is appropriate when the evidence shows no genuine dispute over an important fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment under the law. For a retaliation claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a plaintiff must initially show that the defendant knew about protected activity, took an action that disadvantaged the plaintiff, and connected the two.

HBO argued that all but one remaining plaintiff had failed to identify a specific instance in which the plaintiff sought work from HBO or someone able to provide HBO work and was denied that work. HBO also argued that the people contacted by the plaintiffs were not HBO employees with authority to offer Parking Production Assistant work. The plaintiffs requested limited additional discovery to determine whether the relevant people worked for HBO and had the ability to offer work.

The court denied HBO’s motion without prejudice as to Sapia, Barnes, Bennett, Birkbeck, Brazel, Campbell, Delgadillo, Jackson, Morel, Morgan, C. Pello, Phifer, and Muhammad. The court permitted discovery about whether HBO employed the people allegedly contacted by the plaintiffs and whether those people could offer work on HBO productions when the contacts occurred. The court also permitted discovery about whether anyone at HBO told people with hiring authority not to hire participants in the earlier overtime lawsuit. The plaintiffs had 120 days to complete this discovery, after which HBO could renew its summary-judgment motions.

The court separately discussed timing evidence concerning retaliatory intent. It stated that Delgadillo and C. Pello had shown efforts to obtain work within four months after the earlier lawsuit ended. The court said the other identified plaintiffs could proceed only if they obtained direct evidence of retaliatory intent. The court denied Phifer’s request for discovery of a nonparty’s telephone number because of privacy concerns and because Phifer should have preserved evidence of his own communications.

The court granted HBO’s motion as to Shamarl Wilson and Neftali Pellot. Wilson provided no evidence supporting his initial showing of retaliation, and his counsel did not oppose dismissal. Pellot’s counsel had been unable to reach him, and the record contained no evidence supporting his claims. Both claims were dismissed with prejudice.

The court did not dismiss Muhammad’s claims at this stage despite his failure to participate or provide supporting evidence. The court noted his self-represented status and stated that it would warn him when HBO renewed its motion that his claims could be dismissed with prejudice if he did not respond with evidence or participate in discovery.

Other Plaintiffs No Longer in the Case

The court confirmed or ordered the dismissal of claims belonging to plaintiffs who were no longer participating. Curtis Neil’s claims were dismissed without prejudice after he failed to respond to an order concerning his failure to prosecute. Claims by Devon Bailey, Frederick Diaz, Priamo Fermin, Vincent Taylor, and Robert Tracey had been dismissed without prejudice by stipulation. Ravi Dhanasar’s and Hameen Rashullah’s claims were dismissed with prejudice after they failed to obtain new counsel or state that they would proceed without a lawyer. The court deemed a stipulation effective as to Rafael Diaz, Errol Brown, Dionicio Chambers, Howard Harrison, Colette Sajjad, Clinton Spence, Winston Blackwood, and John Carussi, whose claims were dismissed with prejudice.

Requests for Penalties

HBO sought penalties based on alleged violations of the court’s discovery order, failure to preserve electronically stored information such as text messages, and counsel’s alleged unreasonable and excessive prolonging of the case.

The court denied the request. It found that the plaintiffs had timely provided the spreadsheet required by the discovery order, sought phone records from third parties, and produced the text messages in their possession. Although some plaintiffs apparently failed to preserve relevant text messages, the court concluded that the current record did not establish the required intent to deprive HBO of evidence and declined to impose the severe penalty of an instruction allowing a jury to infer that the missing evidence was unfavorable. The court also found insufficient evidence that the plaintiffs’ claims were entirely baseless and brought in bad faith, so it denied the request for penalties against plaintiffs’ counsel.

Disposition

The court stated that HBO’s motion for summary judgment was granted in part and denied in part. The motion was granted as to Wilson and Neftali Pellot, whose claims were dismissed with prejudice. It was denied without prejudice to renewal as to the 13 listed plaintiffs. The plaintiffs’ request for limited discovery was granted, and HBO’s request for penalties was denied.