Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-alnd-2_14-cv-00779/USCOURTS-alnd-2_14-cv-00779-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alex Produce
Defendant
Bruce Cooperman
Plaintiff
Alex Alarcon Vega
Defendant

Document Text:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

SOUTHERN DIVISION

BRUCE COOPERMAN,

Plaintiff,

v.

ALEX ALARCON VEGA d/b/a Alex

Produce,

Defendant.

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CASE NO. 2:14-CV-0779-SLB

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This case is presently pending before the court on the parties’ Joint Motion to

Approve Settlement. (Doc. 35.) 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 maysupervise the payment of back wagesto 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

FILED

 2016 Jul-12 PM 04:24

U.S. DISTRICT COURT

N.D. OF ALABAMA

Case 2:14-cv-00779-SLB Document 36 Filed 07/12/16 Page 1 of 2
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 defendant 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, including the

amount of attorneys’ fees, is a fair and reasonable compromise of these bona fide disputes.

An Order granting the parties’ Joint Motion to Approve Settlement, (doc. 35), will be

entered contemporaneously with this Memorandum Opinion.

DONE this 12th day of July, 2016.

SHARON LOVELACE BLACKBURN

SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 

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