Najera v. Atmi Junior Laundromat Inc.

Background

Adelina Najera sued Atmi Kurtishi and Atmi Junior Laundromat Inc. over alleged wage-and-hour violations. She asserted claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the New York Labor Law (NYLL), and New York regulations. The claims concerned minimum wages, overtime, spread-of-hours pay, wage notices, wage statements, and recordkeeping.

After a one-day bench trial, the Court ruled for Najera on some claims and against her on others. The Court found that she worked only seven non-contiguous weeks during 2018, 2019, and 2020, rather than the additional hours she claimed. It also found that the laundromat did not have at least $500,000 in gross sales during any year from 2015 through 2020. Because of that sales threshold, the laundromat was not a covered enterprise under the FLSA, and the FLSA claims failed as a matter of law.

The Court nevertheless awarded Najera $4,594 on her NYLL and state-regulation claims. That amount included $527 in unpaid minimum and overtime wages, $120 in unpaid spread-of-hours wages, matching liquidated damages, $550 for wage-notice violations, and $2,750 for wage-statement violations.

Fee request and legal standard

Najera’s counsel requested $26,645 in attorney fees and $3,351.05 in costs. The defendants argued that they should not have to pay fees or that the request should be drastically reduced because Najera recovered only a small portion of what she sought and did not prevail on the FLSA claims.

The NYLL allows a prevailing plaintiff to recover reasonable attorney fees and costs. The Court calculated a presumptively reasonable fee by examining the reasonable hourly rates and the reasonable number of hours worked. It also considered the results obtained, which the Court described as the most important factor in assessing the fee.

Court’s analysis

The Court found that 75.9 hours of work were reasonable for a case that proceeded to a one-day bench trial. It approved a $350 hourly rate for attorney Catalina Sojo and a $125 hourly rate for each of the two paralegals. It reduced attorney Jesse Barton’s proposed $400 hourly rate to $375.

The Court rejected the defendants’ argument that the fee had to be proportional to Najera’s $4,594 damages award. It explained that fee awards in wage-and-hour cases do not have to match or remain proportional to the damages recovered. The Court also declined to reduce the fees based on Najera’s rejection of an earlier $1,000 settlement offer because the defendants had not shown bad faith.

The Court nevertheless found that Najera had achieved limited success. She had requested $78,029.50 in damages but received $4,594, and the Court had rejected her FLSA claims and found that she worked substantially fewer hours than alleged. Because the work on unsuccessful claims substantially overlapped with the work needed to establish the successful NYLL claims, the Court applied an across-the-board 25 percent reduction to the hours billed rather than eliminating all fees or applying a reduction tied directly to the damages amount.

Disposition

The Court granted in part and denied in part the motion for attorney fees. After applying the reduced hourly rate and 25 percent reduction in hours, it awarded $18,843.75 in attorney fees. It also awarded the full $3,351.05 in documented costs for court filings, service of process, translation services, and trial transcripts. The total award was $22,194.80. The Clerk was directed to terminate the motion and close the case.