potentially affect access to representation of thousands of people within the gulf region under the laws that without reaching out if you would like to focus my thousand dollars getting two thousand six hundred dollars i know the amount in controversy is not the sole thing that you look at but it is a factor and i'm really struggling here because it seems like you all did a lot of things that caused a lot of s today however well didn't really don't want to see all again so we sent back not any offense to you we appreciate your take in this case because again you guys the clock is ticking thousand six hundred dollars you all are here it costs money to prepare for argument blah blah blah blah blah and it seems to me that even if we have to put aside mr portillo's lies and and misbehavior in whether he's entitled to these three hundred dollars we don't have to put it aside in looking at the reasonable mess of this whole case seems to me a demand letter would have gotten this money and be done with it but this long involved thing we want to represent other people use the wrong in the name they never heard of  then we sat around waiting to respond to the offer and all of that seems to have just taken more and more and more hours and i don't know where those factor in the twenty six thousand but i do think that's something we should address is how should the district court consider time basis for the attorney's fees is limited however i agree that those factors should be considered in the turning the exact reasonable amount of the attorney here you're basically you're just attempting to argue the proposition that equitable a stop all this never available in regard to attorney's fees are not necessarily  talking about the defendant reach some kind of agreement with the department of labor and pursuant to that agreement was going to pay every worker the amount of back wages the road right and the check was cut and sent to serrano and mr portier claims he didn't get it ok so that's all right so this claim about fifty thousand seems a little stretched maybe five which is why i was going back to the beginning because it looks to say if the whole case was  well so again if you have equitable a shop under that circumstance and your principal argument about attorney's fees is also the use of the word shall why isn't equitable  did you know live on just and so was your argument that the employer was not there for damaged in any way number that they've had all along long before the lawsuit that the road check for has never been altered by all of this litigation up and back it up back in the nd time in front of us that's why i said i didn't want to rd time again not any all your lawyers are great but would like you on another case is what i'm saying so it just seems funny to me that there is any reasonable attorneys fees here but was it something i would mention your hon the st appeal was based on the spew that our clients should be able to proceed on this individual claim based on the same argument that was presented against our motion for attorney was that our client used an alias in order to obtain unjust advantage and therefore should not be allowed to proceed on the merits of this claim however the court dismissed our case number lie that he had a number and then lied about the number and then lied about the name so that's a fair amount of lying for this created a job he would have gotten had he done had he not done the line right but he w employer you make the same argument you can make the argument that just by virtue of somebody accepting a job that they should have known that they were going to get into an accident by virtue of accepting i understand i mean i understand the argument that having done the work it's the compensation i get that argument so i'm not really directing my point to that and directing my point to this notion if there is a basis for equitable stuff it would seem that somebody who committed a crime and lived about something illegally are employed legally in this country we're entitled to the protections of the f s a and that's not the case whether they're undocumented documented legal or illegal they're entitled to the same protections under the statute ok thank you you have time for a battle sounds like he got the facts right september two thousand and fourteen the department of labor started this an investigation and concluded that it wasn't that my client failed to pay overtime and that was never  it has to be paid by the day a client was found owing and they immediately paid out in january of two thousand and fifteen they wrote felix serrano along with a number of other employees a check for the just as a matter of practice it is if a lawsuit is filed double damages are available as what are they mandated period in other words should they have paid that if it is  it is mandated if it is paid voluntarily i would argue that it is not it is no different than finding out that you've underpaid an employee and before there's any action write him a check for the deficiency except  department of labor pointed it out to us and we wrote the check we wrote the check in january th the lawsuit wasn't and it was never claimed of course because it was written to mr felix rano the individual who social security number we relied upon when we hired him we relied on that so security number for the knowing for his medical application for about five different things there were five criminal laws broken by using the wrong social security number and identification for him to get this job does that matter because the argument that well he gets the money anyway so it doesn't matter for purposes of equitable stop me i'm now taking the counter position to the discussion i had with opposing counsel because that's how we operate does it matter that he didn't commit all these crimes many of these allies did all this stuff since he's still entitled to compensation i believe it does affect what a boy stoppel is ever in play it's in a situation where a plaintiff lives to gain an advantage over a defendant and in this particular case that was no fessing up in the complaint it was a had to wait five the motion for summary judgment said we've never had a hobby airport tio that he in the buried in the midst of his opposition to m s j says oh by the way mr porter you really worked as under an alias felix rather he lied about who the person was that had the job of permanent workers i think if ever to me is the fact that he says you can't bring the case if the you can have the whole case dismissed on the basis of think after the stop let attorneys fees it's not if it's an attorney's fees because the mandatory language i don't i don't think that's right i don't think that's correct and the stability case out of a different circuit district court middle district of florida similar situation mandated attorneys fees statute a case settlement for ten thousand dollars an approved despite what were the counsel said earlier it was specifically approved in an order signed by the district court they are approving that settlement which means they were the prevailing party too but because it was the cause of the of the fraud that was committed it was thrown out reasonable and this is the question yes there's mandatory language but is there a point at which a stop old is so bad that we said above means you shouldn't get anything well i'm sorry you didn't find a case where i thought on the panel here to go involving the fair debt collection practices but well there's a way simply the client in that case was the lawyers secretary so that gives you a little starting hint but anyway and i don't recall whether it was a publisher i'm pretty sure was a published suing under fourteen yo you don't know who they are then we had this thing about the the the collective action in the appeal on that and all that and then in their e n wow this huge victory in two thousand six hundred dollars when was when did you w offer that amount because i kind of feel like that's when the amount of attorney's fees are to stop we had a case land vs gruy i think it was last year where we talked about this that the district court has to factor in doesn't have to make that the sole original the original suit the didn't explain who this person was and then the appeal and then they remain in this and that and how much of that is really reasonable so i guess what i'm saying assuming argumenta we don't think equitable stuff magistrate judges opinions are very peculiar because he writes the case entirely one way to award the attorney's fees and any completely flips with the exception of a couple a page or two what's in your brilliant stock was not applicable it is likely that the attorneys here are entitled to some i would argue that it's a small number because of all of the circumstances but yeah but you would argue that  alias had set himself up and say that's a plaintiff or a collective action suit right and the district court hauled off and dismissed him in the hole and swellest the collective action right you know i don't know about the the courts offense or not but i know that the court did dismiss the whole action well didn't well my question is did you or did the defendant asked the court to dismiss the entire action not well so my and my only what i'm getting to is that the st appeal is only partly the product of bench your portfolios misrepresentations because the court the district court could have said he is not an adequate representative for a collective action but i'm not dismissing his case individually yes that's what the district court to this and i think that's what the th circuit kind of