Lazala v. Mega Food Store Inc.
- James Cott
- 1:21-cv-09412
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Lazala v. Mega Food Store Inc., Judge Cott approved the settlement, substituted the estate administrator, and denied the default-judgment motion as moot.
Hector Lazala’s estate and its administrator, David Lazala, as well as Mega Food Store Inc. and the other defendants named in the action.
What happened
In Lazala v. Mega Food Store Inc., the parties reached a settlement in a wage-and-hour case brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act. They asked the court to approve the agreement, and the plaintiff also asked to replace the deceased plaintiff with his estate administrator.
The court approved the settlement as fair and reasonable, including attorney’s fees equal to one-third of the settlement amount. It granted the request to substitute David Lazala, identified as the administrator of Hector Lazala’s estate, and denied the motion for default judgment as moot because of the settlement. The court closed the case but retained jurisdiction only to enforce the settlement.
Judge James L. Cott explained that the substitution request was timely, the claims survived Hector Lazala’s death, and David Lazala had authority to pursue them for the estate. The court’s order did not decide the underlying wage claims on their merits.
The detailed version
- Lazala v. Mega Food Store Inc. · No. 1:21-cv-09412
- James Cott
- July 19, 2022
Background
This was a wage-and-hour action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal law governing minimum wages, overtime, and related employment practices. The parties consented to Magistrate Judge James L. Cott’s jurisdiction and submitted a joint letter and fully executed settlement agreement for court approval.
The opinion states that the defendants’ financial situation, apparently affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, led to a payment schedule for the settlement amount. The court also noted that plaintiff’s counsel waived the right to collect expenses.
Separately, David Lazala moved under Rule 25(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to substitute himself as plaintiff because Hector Lazala had died. The defendants did not oppose the motion. The opinion states that David Lazala had been appointed administrator of Hector Lazala’s estate.
Court’s Rulings
The court approved the proposed settlement. After reviewing the parties’ submissions and considering the settlement conference in which the court participated, it found the agreement’s terms fair and reasonable under the circumstances. This included the provision allocating one-third of the settlement amount to attorney’s fees.
The court granted the substitution motion. It found that the motion was filed less than 90 days after Hector Lazala’s death, that the Fair Labor Standards Act claims survived his death, and that David Lazala was a proper substitute because he had legal authority as administrator of the estate.
The court denied the motion for default judgment as moot because the parties had settled. It directed the Clerk to mark the substitution motion as “granted,” mark the default-judgment motion as “denied as moot,” and close the case. The court retained jurisdiction only to enforce the settlement agreement.
Disposition and Classification
The order approved the settlement, granted the motion to substitute David Lazala, denied the motion for default judgment as moot, closed the case, and retained limited enforcement jurisdiction. It did not decide the underlying wage-and-hour claims on their merits, so this is classified as a procedural order.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.