Rodriguez v. Clearbrook Management Inc
- Sarah Cave
- 1:22-cv-04442
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Rodriguez v. Clearbrook, Judge Cave required billing records before recommending approval of the parties’ FLSA settlement because counsel’s requested fee lacked support.
Joseph Rodriguez, Clearbrook Management Inc., and Rodriguez’s counsel, whose requested fee was subject to further court review.
What happened
In Rodriguez v. Clearbrook Management Inc., the parties asked the court to approve a settlement of Joseph Rodriguez’s Fair Labor Standards Act claims. The proposed settlement included $8,651 for Rodriguez’s counsel: a stated one-third contingency fee and $477 in costs.
The court said it had to review whether the requested attorney fee was reasonable. Rodriguez provided the retainer agreement, but not counsel’s declaration, billing records, or similar information showing the attorneys’ hourly rates and time spent.
Judge Sarah L. Cave did not recommend approval yet. She ordered Rodriguez’s counsel to file billing records and hourly-rate information for the attorneys and support staff who worked on the case by December 12, 2022.
The detailed version
- Rodriguez v. Clearbrook Management Inc · No. 1:22-cv-04442
- Sarah Cave
- Nov. 30, 2022
Background
The parties asked the court to approve their settlement agreement concerning Joseph Rodriguez’s claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The agreement provided that Rodriguez’s counsel would receive $8,651.00, described as a one-third contingency fee of $8,174 plus $477.00 in costs.
Attorney-Fee Review
The court explained that when a proposed Fair Labor Standards Act settlement includes attorney fees, the court must review whether the fee award is reasonable. It stated that courts use the lodestar method as a cross-check even when the fee is based on a contingency agreement and does not exceed one-third of the settlement. The lodestar compares the requested fee with a reasonable hourly rate multiplied by the reasonable number of hours worked. Performing that review generally requires contemporaneous billing records showing, for each attorney, the date, hours spent, and work performed.
Rodriguez submitted the retainer agreement with counsel, but the court said he had not submitted a counsel declaration, billing records, or similar documentation. The missing information prevented the court from evaluating the attorneys’ hourly rates and the number of hours spent on the case.
Order
The court did not complete its review or recommend approval of the settlement at that time. Judge Sarah L. Cave ordered Rodriguez’s counsel to file contemporaneous billing records supporting the requested attorney fees and costs, along with hourly-rate information for all attorneys and support staff who worked on the case, by December 12, 2022.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.