Salinas et al v. Commercial Interiors, Inc. et al

Filing 184

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER granting 170 Motion for Attorneys' fees; adopting 180 Report and Recommendations; JUDGMENT on Attorney Fees awarded to Plaintiffs against Defendants; directing the Clerk to close this case. Signed by Judge Paul W. Grimm on 8/16/2018. (jf3s, Deputy Clerk)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MARYLAND
Southern Division
MARIO SALINAS, et al.,
Plaintiff,

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v.

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COMMERCIAL INTERIORS, INC.,

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Defendant.

Civil Action No. PWG-12-1973

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MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
ADOPTING REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

Plaintiffs Mario Salinas, William Ascencio Torres, Franklin Henriquez, and Bernaldino
Salinas brought litigation in 2012 against Defendants Commercial Interiors, Inc. (“Commercial”)
and J.I. General Contractors, Inc. (“J.I.”)1 for alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act
(“FLSA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201–219; the Maryland Wage and Hour Law (“MWHL”), Md. Code
Ann., Lab. & Empl. §§ 3-401 to 3-430; and the Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law
(“MWPCL”), Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. §§ 3-501 to 3-509. Plaintiffs successfully appealed
an order granting Commercial’s motion for summary judgment and, after this case was
reassigned to me, I entered an order in Plaintiffs’ favor and against Commercial. Plaintiffs
moved for attorneys’ fees and costs, ECF Nos. 170, 171, and I referred this case to Magistrate
Judge Simms for a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”).
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J.I. is not a part of this motion for attorneys’ fees. A three-day bench trial was held by Judge
Motz, who found in favor of Plaintiffs. ECF No. 105. After the parties briefed a motion for
attorneys’ fees and bill of costs against J.I., ECF Nos. 110–12, 116, Judge Motz awarded
Plaintiffs $7,500.00 in attorneys’ fees and costs in the amount of $350. ECF No. 121. Plaintiffs
have stated that they are not seeking fees incurred for actions against J.I. See, e.g., Pl.’s Mem. 34,
ECF No. 175 (“Plaintiffs’ partial success in the earlier stages of this litigation at trial against J.I.
on their pre- and post-shift claims has already been accounted for in the Court’s first fee award
and should not be double-counted against Plaintiffs in this fee petition against Commercial.”).

Judge Simms filed a thorough and well-reasoned R&R, ECF No. 180; Defendant
objected to her recommendations, Def.’s Obj. to R&R, ECF No. 182; and Plaintiffs responded,
Pls.’ Resp., ECF No. 183. I find, on de novo review, that Judge Simms’s factual findings and the
majority of her legal analysis were correct. However, I believe a reduction in the overall fees is
warranted and will award Plaintiffs attorneys’ fees in the amount of $276,099.78 and $9,485.95
in costs. Accordingly, Defendant’s objections are overruled in part.
Legal Standard
The Court reviews de novo any portions of a magistrate judge’s R&R to which a specific
objection is made, 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), but may adopt, without explanation, any of the
magistrate judge’s recommendations to which no objections are filed, Solis, 638 F.3d at 274 (4th
Cir. 2011) (citing Camby, 718 F.2d at 200). Any objection to a magistrate judge’s findings and
recommendations must be served and filed within fourteen days of their issuance. Fed. R. Civ.
P. 72(b)(2); see also Loc. R. 301.5(a). Absent a timely objection, the Court need “only satisfy
itself that there is no clear error on the face of the record in order to accept the recommendation.”
Diamond v. Colonial Life & Acc. Ins. Co., 416 F.3d 310, 315 (4th Cir. 2005) (quoting Fed. R.
Civ. P. 72 advisory committee’s note).
Discussion
Attorneys’ Fees
As Judge Simms notes, the Fourth Circuit recently articulated the procedure by which
attorneys’ fees are awarded in Randolph v. Powercomm Constr. Inc., 715 F. App’x 227, 230 (4th
Cir. 2017):
First, “the court must determine the lodestar figure by multiplying the number of
reasonable hours expended times a reasonable rate.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted). “To ascertain what is reasonable in terms of hours expended and the rate
charged, the court is bound to apply the factors set forth in Johnson v. Georgia
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Highway Express Inc., 488 F.2d 714, 717-19 (5th Cir. 1974).” McAfee, 738 F.3d
at 88. Second, “the court must subtract fees for hours spent on unsuccessful
claims unrelated to successful ones.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). When
“all claims involve a common core of facts much of counsel’s time will be
devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the
hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis.” Brodziak v. Runyon, 145 F.3d 194,
197 (4th Cir. 1998) (alterations, ellipsis, and internal quotation marks omitted).
Third, “the court should award some percentage of the remaining amount,
depending on the degree of success enjoyed by the plaintiff.” McAfee, 738 F.3d at
88 (internal quotation marks omitted).
As for the first two steps, I adopt Judge Simms’s analysis, as her adjusted lodestar
amount satisfies the Johnson factors and Plaintiffs mostly eliminated duplicative or nonsuccessful claims from their requested fee award. I further adopt Judge Simms’s additional
deductions for some remaining duplicative billing entries and inadequate descriptions. R&R 13–
15. Therefore, after “step 2” of the Randolph analysis, the adjusted lodestar amount is equal to
$306,777.53.
Judge Simms recommended that “no further downward adjustments [were] necessary,”
and awarded 100 percent of the adjusted lodestar amount. R&R 15. While I agree with Judge
Simms that Plaintiffs were quite successful in this litigation—prevailing on an appeal to the
Fourth Circuit, Salinas v. Comm. Interiors, Inc., 848 F.3d 125, 141–42 (4th Cir. 2017), and
obtaining a damages award of the statutory maximum (albeit in an amount of only $1,041.00 in
total)—I do find that a modest reduction in the award is warranted.
The purpose of the FLSA attorney fees provision is to insure effective access to
the judicial process by providing attorney fees for prevailing plaintiffs with wage
and hour grievances. Courts should not place an undue emphasis on the amount of
the plaintiff’s recovery because an award of attorney fees here encourage[s] the
vindication of congressionally identified policies and rights.
Fegley

v.

Higgins,

19

F.3d

1126,

1134–35

(6th

Cir.

1994)

(internal

citations

omitted). Nonetheless, while “[f]ee awards should be adequate to attract competent counsel,
[they] should not produce a windfall to attorneys.” Jeffry Butler, et al. v. DIRECSAT USA, LLC,
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et al., No. DKC-10-2747, 2016 WL 1077158, *6 (D. Md. Mar. 18, 2016). It is without doubt
that cases such as this one are important and that without statutory authorized attorneys’ fees,
many FLSA cases may not be brought, for the simple reason that these cases often are
aggressively defended, and by the time the plaintiffs successfully overcome the many legal
obstacles raised by the defense (including, in this case, the need to take an appeal to the Fourth
Circuit) the amount of the attorneys’ fee request may dwarf the statutorily authorized relief
obtained by the plaintiffs themselves. And, if an award of attorneys’ fees should not be a
windfall to Plaintiffs’ counsel, neither should it be so parsimonious that it amounts to a windfall
to a Defendant whose aggressive approach to the litigation required the effort by Plaintiffs’
counsel in the first place. Although Plaintiffs’ counsel has done commendably in this matter, to
award $306,777.53 in attorneys’ fees when Plaintiffs themselves received a total award of
$1,041.00 would not only be a windfall but contrary to the Federal Rules. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 1
(stating that the rules were implemented and should be “employed by the court and the parties to
secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding”)
(emphasis added); Jeffry Butler, 2016 WL 1077158, *6.
In the interest of justice and to avoid disincentivizing other attorneys from taking cases
akin to Plaintiffs’ case, I will not reduce the attorneys’ fees to be equivalent to artificial metrics
such as percentage of successful claims, or the ratio of the award compared to the amount that
was demanded as Defendant suggests, see, e.g. Def.’s Obj. to R&R 12. Instead, I believe a ten
percent reduction is warranted to recognize that the already-adjusted lodestar amount greatly
exceeds the statutory maximum amount of damages, which Plaintiffs received, while still
permitting reasonable attorneys’ fees on a matter that required significant effort by counsel who
successfully defined a standard for future cases. See Salinas, 848 F.3d at 141–42 (creating a six-

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factor test to determine if parties or entities were joint employers). I therefore award Plaintiffs
attorneys’ fees in the amount of $276,099.77 or 90 percent of the adjusted lodestar amount.
Bill of Costs
As for the bill of costs, I adopt Judge Simms’s recommendations. As for the timeliness
of Plaintiffs’ request, I note that, under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and this Court’s
Local Rules, Plaintiffs had 14 days to file their bill of costs after the entry of my order on
November 13, 2017, that is, until November 27, 2017. Fed. R. Civ. P. 6; Loc. R. 109.1(a). On
November 14, 2017, I entered an order stating that Plaintiffs’ motion for attorneys’ fees would
be due on November 28, 2017. ECF No. 169. Plaintiffs filed their bill of costs on November 28,
2017.
Under the Federal Rules, the 14-day filing period can be extended if Plaintiffs filed a
“motion made after the time has expired if the party failed to act because of excusable neglect.”
Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(b)(1)(B). I construe the arguments in Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Defendants’
Objections, Pls.’ Resp. to Def.’s Obj. 5–6, as both an opposition and as a motion for an extension
of time to file their bill of costs. Judge Simms’s R&R found Plaintiffs’ Bill of Cost timely
because Thanksgiving was during that period and therefore, it provided an extra day to file their
Bill of Costs. R&R 16 (citing Loc. R. 109.1(a)).
More importantly than whether a federal holiday extended the time to file, my Order
setting the deadline for Plaintiffs to file their motion for attorneys’ fees may have caused
confusion. As I set the deadlines for Plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fee motion for November 28, 2017—
and as Plaintiffs argued in their opposition to Defendant’s objections, Pls.’ Resp. to Def.’s Obj.
5–6—they believed both items were due on November 28, 2017.

Further, my order in

conjunction with Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment stated that “Plaintiffs also shall be

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awarded reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs, to be determined in further proceedings scheduled
by the Court.” Summ. J. Or. 2, ECF No. 168 (emphasis added). I find this to be excusable
neglect and will not fault Plaintiffs for confusion I may have caused. Therefore, I find Plaintiffs’
bill of costs timely, and as previously stated, adopt Judge Simms’s recommendations to award
the full request. Plaintiffs are awarded $9,485.95 in costs.
Conclusion
For the aforementioned reasons, it is this 16th day of August, 2018, ORDERED that
1. Plaintiffs Mario Salinas, William Ascencio Torres, Franklin Henriquez, and
Bernaldino Salinas’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees, ECF No. 170, IS GRANTED;
2. Judge Simms’s Report and Recommendation, ECF No. 180, BE, and HEREBY
IS, ADOPTED AS AN ORDER OF THE COURT, as modified above, and
Plaintiffs Mario Salinas, William Ascencio Torres, Franklin Henriquez, and
Bernaldino Salinas are awarded $276,099.78 in attorneys’ fees and $9,485.95 in
costs; and
3. The Clerk of the Court shall CLOSE this case.
It is so ordered.

/S/
Paul W. Grimm
United States District Judge

jml

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