LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – Plaintiffs lawyers shouldn’t have been awarded $280,000 for negotiating a $15,000 settlement, a Los Angeles appeals court has ruled.
The California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District issued its ruling on May 21 in a blow to lawyers who claimed to spend more than 800 hours on the lawsuit and initially requested close to $600,000 in fees and expenses.
The decision comes in a former server’s lawsuit against Fleming’s Steakhouse & Wine Bar’s. She alleged she was deprived her 10-minute breaks, but her lawyers claimed the settlement included wage and hour claims that entitled them to recover fees.
The plaintiff, Raquel Betancourt, claimed she was retaliated against for reporting a chef who cut raw chicken on cutting boards designated for vegetables. She settled her claims that the restaurant failed to provide meal and rest periods for $15,375.
The language of the settlement also included that resolved were “any and all wage-and-hour-related causes of action that were or could have been asserted in the complaint.”
Afterwards, attorneys at Felahy Employment Lawyers and Yash Law Group sought $580,794 in fees and more than $16,000 in costs, claiming they spent 869.6 hours were incurred. They said the wage and hour claims were “closely intertwined” with retaliation and wrongful termination claims.
The restaurant opposed the request, arguing that existing precedent prevents lawyers from recovering fees when they only prevail on a claim for meal or rest break premium pay.
They also said virtually all discovery focused on the retaliation and wrongful termination claims – not wage and hour.
It was noted that when the plaintiffs lawyer sent a settlement demand of $750,000, the wage claims were less than $13,000 of that.
“Kirby tells us that a plaintiff cannot obtain attorney fees in an action for failure to provide rest breaks or meal periods,” Justice Elizabeth Grimes wrote. “That is because an action for nonprovision of meal or rest breaks is not an action brought for nonpayment of wages.
“The remedy for nonprovision of meal or rest breaks is an additional hour of pay (often described in the case law as ‘premium wages’), but that does not turn a lawsuit for violation of meal or rest breaks into a lawsuit for nonpayment of wages.”
From Legal Newsline: Reach editor John O’Brien at john.obrien@therecordinc.com.