Chowdhury v. Shuvo
- Analisa Torres
- 1:22-cv-01920
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Chowdhury v. Shuvo, Judge Torres approved a $65,000 wage-case settlement and ordered the case closed.
Tahmid Chowdhury, William DeGraaff, MD Shahrish Sharif Shuvo, Shahrish Shuvo Engineering P.C., and plaintiffs’ counsel were affected by the approved settlement; the case was then closed.
What happened
Tahmid Chowdhury and William DeGraaff sued MD Shahrish Sharif Shuvo and Shahrish Shuvo Engineering P.C., alleging unpaid or underpaid wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law. After reaching a settlement, the parties asked the court to approve it.
The settlement provided $65,000, including attorney’s fees and costs. Chowdhury would receive $17,500, and DeGraaff would receive $32,500. The court found the settlement fair and reasonable because it exceeded the plaintiffs’ estimated maximum recovery for their minimum-wage claims, accounted for litigation risks and expenses, resulted from arms-length negotiations, and showed no evidence of fraud, collusion, confidentiality restrictions, or an overly broad release.
Judge Analisa Torres granted the motion for settlement approval. She also approved the requested attorney’s fees and costs as reasonable, directed the Clerk of Court to terminate all pending motions, and ordered the case closed.
The detailed version
- Chowdhury v. Shuvo · No. 1:22-cv-01920
- Analisa Torres
- July 5, 2023
Background
Tahmid Chowdhury and William DeGraaff brought claims against MD Shahrish Sharif Shuvo and Shahrish Shuvo Engineering P.C. under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law. They alleged, among other things, that they had not received all wages owed to them. After the parties reached a settlement, they asked the court to approve the agreement.
Settlement Approval
The proposed settlement provided a total recovery of $65,000, inclusive of attorney’s fees and costs. Chowdhury would receive $17,500, and DeGraaff would receive $32,500. Based on the plaintiffs’ minimum-wage claims, the court stated that Chowdhury’s maximum possible recovery for unpaid wages was $3,480 and DeGraaff’s was $6,380. The court observed that the settlement recoveries were more than five times those amounts.
For an FLSA settlement, the court explained that the parties must show the agreement is fair and reasonable. The court considered the plaintiffs’ potential recovery, the burdens and expenses of continuing the litigation, the risks of litigation, the parties’ arms-length negotiations, and the absence of fraud or collusion. It also noted that the agreement did not contain a highly restrictive confidentiality provision or an overly broad release. The court concluded that the settlement satisfied these standards.
Attorney’s Fees and Costs
Plaintiffs’ counsel sought $15,000 in attorney’s fees and costs, approximately 23 percent of the settlement proceeds. Counsel submitted contemporaneous billing records. The court calculated the attorneys’ lodestar—the amount based on the lawyers’ recorded hours and claimed hourly rates—as $17,997.50, plus $612.86 in costs. The court found the claimed hourly rates reasonable and approved attorney’s fees of $14,387.14 and costs of $612.86 because the combined award was less than one-third of the recovery and less than the lodestar amount.
Disposition
The court granted the parties’ motion for settlement approval. The Clerk of Court was directed to terminate all pending motions and close the case.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.