Sims v. CM Food Service LLC

Filing 67

MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn on 1/27/17. (SMH)

FILED
2017 Jan-27 PM 03:16
U.S. DISTRICT COURT
N.D. OF ALABAMA

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
SOUTHERN DIVISION
JACOB SIMS,
Plaintiff,
vs.
CM FOOD SERVICE, L.L.C., doing
business as Michael’s Restaurant; P.R.
MICHAEL’S L.L.C.; MICHAEL’S
HOMEWOOD, L.L.C.; CHARLES
MATSOS; CANNON PRICKETT,
Defendants.

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CASE NO. 2:14-CV-2224-SLB

MEMORANDUM OPINION
This case is presently pending before the court on the parties’ Joint Motion to
Approve Settlement Agreement. (Doc. 65.) For the reasons set forth below, the court find
the parties’ Motion is due to be granted.
The court notes:
[T]he FLSA’s are mandatory and, except in two narrow circumstances, are
generally not subject to bargaining, waiver, or modification by contract or
settlement. Brooklyn Savings Bank v. O’Neil, 324 U.S. 697, 706, 65 S. Ct.
895, 902, 89 L. Ed. 1296 (1945). The first exception is that the Secretary of
Labor may supervise the payment of back wages to employees; employees
who accept such payments waive their rights to bring suits for liquidated
damages, provided the employer pays the back amount in full. 29 U.S.C. §
216(c); Lynn’s Food Stores, Inc. v. United States, 679 F.2d 1350, 1352-53
(11th Cir. 1982).
The second route to settlement, and the one that is applicable here,
occurs when an employee brings a private action for back wages under 29
U.S.C. § 216(b); the employee and employer present a proposed settlement to
the district court, and the district court reviews the judgment and enters it as
a stipulated judgment. Lynn’s Food Stores, 679 F.2d at 1354 (“Settlements

may be permissible in the context of a suit brought by employees under the
FLSA for back wages because initiation of the action by employees provides
some assurance of an adversarial context. The employees are likely to be
represented by an attorney who can protect their rights under the statute. Thus,
when the parties submit a settlement to the court for approval, the settlement
is more likely to reflect a reasonable compromise of disputed issues than a
mere waiver of statutory rights brought about by an employer’s
overreaching.”).
In reviewing a settlement of an FLSA private claim, a court must
“scrutiniz[e] the settlement for fairness,” id. at 1353, and determine that the
settlement is a “fair and reasonable resolution of a bona fide dispute over
FLSA provisions,” id. at 1355. “If a settlement in an employee FLSA suit
does reflect a reasonable compromise over issues, such as FLSA coverage or
computation of back wages, that are actually in dispute[,] . . . the district court
[may] approve the settlement in order to promote the policy of encouraging
settlement of litigation.” Id. at 1354.
Stalnaker v. Novar Corp., 293 F. Supp. 2d 1260, 1262-63 (M.D. Ala. 2003).
The court finds that plaintiff’s claims represent a bona fide dispute over FLSA
provisions, specifically whether defendants had a uniform policy and practice of requiring
employees to participate in an illegal and invalid tip pool, and whether, based on plaintiff’s
contributions to the tip pool, defendants paid plaintiff for all hours worked and whether it
paid him time and half for all hours worked over forty in a given workweek. Based on the
parties’ representations, the court finds that the terms of the parties’ Settlement Agreement
– including the amount of attorneys’ fees and the amount paid for plaintiff’s confidentiality
– is a fair and reasonable compromise of these bona fide disputes.

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An Order granting the parties’ Joint Motion to Approve Settlement Agreement, (doc.
65), will be entered contemporaneously with this Memorandum Opinion.
DONE this 27th day of January, 2017.

SHARON LOVELACE BLACKBURN
SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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