Zavala v. Top Shelf Electric Corp.
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:20-cv-09437
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Zavala v. Top Shelf Electric, Judge Engelmayer denied Top Shelf’s summary-judgment motion, allowing the claims to proceed to trial.
The plaintiffs’ FLSA and New York Labor Law claims against Top Shelf Electric Corp. remain pending and will proceed toward trial; the ruling concerns only Top Shelf’s request for summary judgment.
What happened
In Zavala v. Top Shelf Electric Corp., 18 workers alleged that the defendants violated the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law. Top Shelf asked the court to dismiss all claims against it, arguing that it was not their joint employer.
A magistrate judge recommended denying Top Shelf’s motion because a reasonable jury could find that Top Shelf was the workers’ joint employer. No party objected, so the district court reviewed the recommendation for clear error.
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer adopted the recommendation and denied Top Shelf’s motion for summary judgment. The case will proceed to trial.
The detailed version
- Zavala v. Top Shelf Electric Corp. · No. 1:20-cv-09437
- Paul Engelmayer
- July 13, 2022
Background
The plaintiffs brought claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a federal wage-and-hour law, and the New York Labor Law against PEI Electrical Services Group Inc., CPI Electrical Services Inc., Top Shelf Electric Corp., and Pablo Ibepaulino. Top Shelf sought summary judgment on all claims against it. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial when the moving party argues that the evidence does not present a genuine dispute requiring a jury’s decision.
Report and Recommendation
The matter had been referred to Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein for a recommendation on the dispositive motion. He recommended denying Top Shelf’s motion because a reasonable jury could find that Top Shelf was the plaintiffs’ joint employer. The opinion incorporates the magistrate judge’s factual summary rather than restating those facts.
No party filed objections to the recommendation. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer therefore reviewed it for clear error, meaning an obvious mistake on the face of the record. He found no such error and adopted the recommendation in its entirety.
Ruling and Effect
The court denied Top Shelf’s motion for summary judgment. The case will proceed to trial. The ruling leaves the claims against Top Shelf for further proceedings; it does not decide that Top Shelf was in fact a joint employer, only that a reasonable jury could make that finding.
The court also ended Judge Gorenstein’s pretrial supervision. The parties could jointly consent to have Judge Gorenstein conduct the remaining proceedings, including trial, but the opinion does not state that they did so.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.