De La Cruz v. Manhattan Parking Group LLC d/b/a Manhattan Parking Group

Background

The court had previously approved a $1.2 million settlement for Class Representative Carlos Martin de la Cruz and approximately 1,600 other parking attendants, cashiers, and other hourly workers. The workers allegedly had been underpaid in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New York Labor Law. The settlement also included a $300,000 award of attorneys’ fees to Lee Litigation Group, LLC, the class’s counsel. The $300,000 award equaled 25% of the gross settlement fund.

Class Counsel moved for reconsideration under Local Civil Rule 6.3 and asked the court to award the full $400,000 originally requested. The motion was unopposed. The opinion noted that increasing the fee award would benefit only Class Counsel and would reduce the estimated average payment to each class member from approximately $518 to approximately $423.

Arguments and Analysis

Class Counsel argued that the court had made four errors. First, the court had incorrectly stated that Lee Litigation Group represented the plaintiffs in a cited case. Second, Class Counsel argued that the court improperly relied on empirical studies and a 25% baseline when applying the factors used to evaluate class-action fees. Third, counsel argued that the court failed to account adequately for the case’s risks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and defendants’ allegedly strong defenses. Fourth, counsel challenged the court’s reduction of counsel’s stated hourly rates for purposes of a lodestar cross-check. A lodestar is an estimate based primarily on reasonable hours multiplied by reasonable hourly rates.

The court agreed that it had mistakenly identified Lee Litigation Group as counsel in the cited case; the plaintiffs there were represented by Borrelli & Associates. The court said it regretted the error and issued an amended fee opinion correcting it.

The court rejected the remaining arguments. It explained that reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy and generally requires the moving party to identify controlling decisions or information that was already presented to the court but overlooked and that could reasonably have changed the result. The court concluded that Class Counsel had not presented empirical evidence in the original fee application and therefore could not use reconsideration to introduce newly gathered data from the firm’s own files.

The court also concluded that the firm’s data was unlikely to have changed the baseline fee analysis. That analysis considered neutral empirical studies and the facts that the case was not otherwise complex, settled early, and settled for 4% of the total damages calculated by Class Counsel before depositions or a collective- or class-certification motion. The court stated that it could reach a fee percentage lower than a commonly used benchmark when the specific facts of the case supported that result.

The court further found that the COVID-19-related difficulties and alleged litigation risks did not justify increasing the fee. Class Counsel had not shown in the original papers or in the reconsideration motion that the defendants faced the particular financial threats counsel described or that the settlement should be considered extraordinary or superior in light of the weaknesses counsel had previously identified.

Finally, the court explained that it had not used the stated or discounted hourly rates to set or reduce the fee award. It had used the lodestar calculation only as a cross-check and found that the $300,000 award was within a reasonable range compared with the adjusted and self-calculated lodestars.

Disposition

Judge Barbara Moses held that the correction to the cited case did not undermine the earlier fee determination. The court concluded that the $300,000 award fairly compensated Class Counsel while protecting the interests of absent class members. The motion for reconsideration was DENIED, and the $300,000 fee award remained in effect.