Alder v. County of Yolo

Filing 31

ORDER signed by District Judge Vince Chhabria on 3/20/18 GRANTING IN PART 29 Motion for approval of settlement agreement. (Kaminski, H)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

EVAN ALDER, et al.,

Case No. 16-cv-01682-VC

Plaintiffs,
v.
COUNTY OF YOLO,
Defendant.

ORDER GRANTING IN PART
PARTIES' RENEWED MOTION TO
APPROVE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS
ACT SETTLEMENT
Re: Dkt. No. 29

The parties’ renewed motion for approval of their settlement agreement is granted in
large part. The substance of the settlement agreement, as amended and clarified by the parties’
renewed motion, is approved with respect to release of and compensation for the alleged Fair
Labor Standards Act violations. The proposed notice procedure is approved with one small
caveat. The plaintiffs should make the following edit to page 2 of their proposed notice to make
clear that both current and former employees are eligible for settlement payments: Delete
“current” from the sentence beginning “[t]he County has agreed to pay Putative Plaintiffs
(eligible current employees who have not joined the action) an amount constituting corrected
overtime back pay . . . .” Messing Decl., Ex. 1 at 2, Dkt. No. 28-2.
The Court concludes that the proposed “statutory” fee amount, $106,625.59, constitutes a
reasonable fee award for plaintiffs’ counsel in this case. See 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). Using a 25%
common-fund benchmark would undercompensate plaintiffs’ counsel in light of the County’s
agreement to change its practices and the number of putative plaintiffs who can benefit from the
settlement. Instead, the Court looks to the lodestar, accepts counsel’s proposed hourly rates as
reasonable and, after reviewing counsel’s billing records, concludes the amount of time

expended on this litigation prior to and during negotiation of the settlement agreement generally
was not excessive. However, a significant portion of the hours spent on this case were focused
on the bona fide plan dispute. Although counsel achieved some benefit for the plaintiffs with
respect to this issue, plaintiffs’ recovery on this claim is significantly discounted. See In re
Bluetooth Headset Prod. Liab. Litig., 654 F.3d 935, 942 (9th Cir. 2011) (explaining that “the
benefit obtained” for the plaintiffs is foremost among the factors relevant to assessing
reasonableness). Further, although counsel faced a risk of nonpayment as to the bona fide plan
issue, it was clear at the outset of this litigation that counsel was likely to recover some amount
of fees as to the cash in-lieu issue. See id. So, although counsel has spent additional hours since
initially proposing the statutory fee award drafting motions justifying the arrangement between
the parties, that proposed statutory fee award adequately compensates counsel for all time spent
on this lawsuit to date. It would be unreasonable in this case to discount County employees’
FLSA recovery by requiring them to supplement the reasonable fee award the County has agreed
to pay with additional contingency fees. Counsel for the plaintiffs therefore should remove
reference to contingency fees from the proposed notice, in addition to making the edit noted
above.
When the parties seek dismissal of this action with prejudice following the Claims
Period, they should submit a declaration updating the Court on settlement administration. See
Settlement Agreement ¶ 25, Messing Decl., Ex. A, Dkt. No. 26-3.

IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: March 20, 2018
______________________________________
VINCE CHHABRIA
United States District Judge

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