Savor Health, LLC v. Day

Background

Savor Health, LLC and Susan Bratton, together referred to as “Savor,” filed a letter motion asking the court to strike Andrea Day’s Second Amended Counterclaim and Third Party Complaint, as well as Day’s letter responding to that motion. Day’s amended pleading added several claims against Savor and Bratton and added allegations concerning her access to Savor’s information, her retaliation claims, her alleged entitlement to equity, Bratton’s status as an employer, and her work in interstate commerce.

Gap-Time Claims

Day’s seventh counterclaim and seventh third-party claim asserted “gap-time” violations under the New York Labor Law. The court had previously ruled that gap-time claims were not legally cognizable. Although Day said she kept the claims to preserve them for appellate review, the court saw no reason to change its earlier reasoning. It therefore struck both gap-time claims and stated that Savor did not need to address them in a future dispositive motion.

Other Amendments

Savor argued that Day’s other new claims and allegations exceeded the scope of the court’s earlier order allowing amendment. The court declined to interpret that earlier ruling as imposing a substantive limit on Day’s amendment. It also stated that, even if Day exceeded the order’s scope, the court did not need to dismiss claims or allegations on that basis.

Instead, the court considered whether the amendments should be permitted under Rule 15, which generally governs amendments to pleadings. The court explained that amendment is generally denied for reasons such as bad faith, undue delay, or undue prejudice. It found that Savor had not shown that any of those concerns justified striking any part of Day’s amended pleading.

Day’s new claims included a claim against Savor for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and claims against Bratton for breach of contract, account stated, and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Although the case was at a late stage—with discovery complete and Savor having filed a partial summary judgment motion—the court found that the delay was not attributable to Day because the court had only granted leave to amend in its March 31, 2022 opinion. The court also found that the new claims appeared to rely on the same factual allegations as Day’s earlier claims, reducing the risk of prejudice.

The court noted that Day had not indicated that she intended to reopen discovery and concluded that Savor could address the new claims in an amended summary judgment motion. Savor remained free to argue in that motion that the new claims failed as a matter of law or lacked evidentiary support. The court also declined to strike supplemental allegations about Bratton’s status as Day’s employer, finding those allegations harmless because the earlier pleading had already sufficiently alleged that status.

Day added allegations that she engaged in interstate commerce as a Savor employee, an element relevant to coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The court did not address the effect of those allegations because Day was not attempting to replead the Fair Labor Standards Act claims that the court had already dismissed. The court stated that those claims would also have failed for independent reasons and found no basis to strike the new allegations.

Damages Allegations and Disposition

Savor also objected to Day’s new mathematical formula for calculating allegedly unpaid wages and to allegations about the number of hours she worked, arguing that they conflicted with Day’s earlier sworn interrogatory answers. The court treated this as an effort to prevent Day from asserting damages inconsistent with her prior interrogatory responses. Because the same issue was already raised in a sanctions motion pending before Judge Willis, the court deferred to Judge Willis’s forthcoming ruling.

The court struck Day’s gap-time claims. It declined to strike any other portion of Day’s amended pleading and declined to grant Savor leave to move to do so. The court directed Savor, by May 19, 2022, to state whether it would rely on its existing partial summary judgment motion or file an amended motion addressing the court’s March 31 ruling and Day’s additional claims and allegations.