Case ID: f-appx_394/html/0800-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN, INC., Appellee/Cross-Appellant, v. CAROLINA CAS. INS. CO., Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
    Nos. 10-0737-cv, 10-0793-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Oct. 1, 2010.
    Emanuel R. Gold, Law Offices of Emanuel R. Gold, Forest Hills, NY, for Appellant.
    Thomas D. Czik, Law Offices of Thomas D. Czik, Roslyn, NY, for Appellee.
    PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge, WILFRED FEINBERG, JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Appellant/Cross-Appellee Carolina Casualty Insurance Company (“Carolina”) and Appellee/Cross-Appellant Job Opportunities for Women, Inc. (“JOW”) challenge the January 29, 2010 judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Levy, M.J.), which awarded JOW $86,234.62 in damages plus $25,643.58 in interest on its breach of contract claim. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal, and summarize them only briefly in this order.

Carolina issued a construction bond for a project on which JOW was a subcontractor. In the wake of the failure of the general contractor to pay JOW, Carolina paid on its bond. In this diversity action, JOW and Carolina contest unfair charges. The parties consented to a trial before Magistrate Judge Levy who presided over a bench trial on July 20, 2009. By Memorandum and Order dated January 29, 2010, 2010 WL 415394, Judge Levy found in favor of JOW in the total amount of $111,878.20 (damages of $86,234.62 plus prejudgment interest of $25,643.58). The district court declined to award attorneys’ fees to either party. Both parties timely appealed.

We review a district court’s findings of fact for clear error. See Olin Corp. v. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 221 F.3d 307, 320 (2d Cir.2000). The question of “the amount of recoverable damages is a question of fact,” that we review for clear error. Lucente v. Int’l Bus. Mach Corp., 310 F.3d 243, 261 (2d Cir.2002) (quotation marks omitted). “A finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395, 68 S.Ct. 525, 92 L.Ed. 746 (1948); accord Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573-74, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985) (“If the district court’s account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently. Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”). We review a district court’s decision to deny attorneys’ fees for abuse of discretion. Chen v. Chen Qualified Settlement Fund, 552 F.3d 218, 225 (2d Cir.2009).

Each party invites this Court to review the district court’s factual determinations de novo. Citing relatively few cases and relying on selected portions of the trial testimony, the parties have engaged in nothing more than reargument and have failed to demonstrate that any of the district court’s factual findings were clearly erroneous. The evidence identified by Carolina and JOW does not leave us with the “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. at 395, 68 S.Ct. 525. In addition, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the award of attorneys’ fees since neither Jew’s claims nor Carolina’s affirmative defenses were frivolous. See.Pan-etta v. Crowley, 460 F.3d 388, 399 (2d Cir.2006). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment.

Finding no merit in Jew’s or Carolina’s remaining arguments, we hereby AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.