Ortiz v. Eskina 214 Corp.

Background

Plaintiffs Ricardo Ortiz, Henry Flores, and Mario Flores worked as cooks for Café Tabaco & Ron, which is identified in the caption as Eskina 214 Corp. doing business as Café Tabaco & Ron. They allege that the defendants denied them overtime and committed other wage-and-hour violations. The case includes plaintiffs who joined a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action and a class. The court had conditionally certified the collective action, and defendants had produced a class list.

Defendant Ismael Garcia was proceeding without a lawyer and had not participated in the case or responded to discovery for some time. Counsel for the Café and William Segura told the court that they intended to seek permission to withdraw because their clients had stopped responding. The court directed that counsel to file a withdrawal motion and supporting affidavit by November 7, 2022, serve the motion and order on the Café and Segura, and allow them 14 days to respond. The court also directed plaintiffs’ counsel to file a status letter by December 2, 2022, stating whether additional employees or former employees had joined the collective action.

Motion to Compel Garcia’s Deposition

Plaintiffs moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 to require Garcia to attend a deposition and to award fees and costs. Garcia had failed to appear for two scheduled depositions despite court involvement and efforts by his former lawyers. The court found that he had refused to attend after numerous attempts to obtain his compliance.

The court granted the motion as to Garcia, except that it reduced the requested fees. Garcia was ordered to attend a deposition and to pay plaintiffs $825 for attorneys’ fees incurred in connection with the motion. The court denied the motion as to defense counsel, finding that counsel had attempted to secure Garcia’s compliance but faced an uncooperative client.

Plaintiffs had requested $18,785 in fees and costs. The court found that request excessive and concluded that much of the submitted time was unrelated to the motion. It also found the requested hourly rates excessive. The court determined that $825 was the appropriate award.

Motion to Compel Documents

Plaintiffs also moved to require all defendants to produce documents requested during Segura’s deposition. The requested materials included an employee manual, contracts and other records concerning ownership of the Café, and relevant emails from Segura’s business account.

The court granted this motion in part. By November 23, 2022, Segura and the Café were required to produce the employee manual; the 2018 sales contract between Segura and Garcia; documentation of the 2018 share transfer; the 2021 repurchase contract and supporting documents; and emails from Segura’s business account containing employee wage, attendance, and scheduling records for the three-year period before the complaint was filed through the present. If defendants used search terms to find the specified business documents, they were required to provide plaintiffs with those search terms.

The court denied plaintiffs’ request for information about the business-email search, including a report of the search terms and the custodian, because the request was overly vague and unnecessary. The court stated that the only custodian account being searched was Segura’s business email account.

Disposition

The Opinion and Order terminated the motions at ECF Nos. 100 and 103. Judge Katharine H. Parker granted the deposition motion as to Garcia, denied it as to defense counsel, and granted in part the document-production motion.