[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 19-13965

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 4:16-cv-00801-RH-CAS

MARIA RODRIGUEZ, 

NUBIA WILKINSON, 

QIANA NORMAN, 

FAYE FLANAGAN, 

ALISHA GRIMMAGE, et al.,

 Plaintiffs-Appellees,

versus

MOLINA HEALTHCARE INC.,

 Defendant,

MOLINA HEALTHCARE OF FLORIDA 

INC., 

 Defendant-Appellant.

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No. 19-13968

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 4:18-cv-00194-RH-CAS

CAROLYN DYER,

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

MOLINA HEALTHCARE, INC.,

 Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Florida

________________________

(March 26, 2020)

Before JORDAN, LAGOA and BLACK, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

These consolidated appeals concern an award of attorney’s fees in a pair of 

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) cases. The plaintiffs in both cases asserted 

claims under the FLSA for unpaid overtime against Molina Healthcare of Florida, 

Inc. (Molina). The first case was a class action, initiated in 2016 by class 

representatives Maria Rodriguez and Nubia Wilkinson (Plaintiffs).

1

 The second 

1 “An action to recover” under the FLSA “may be maintained against any employer . . . 

by any one or more employees for and in behalf of himself or themselves and other employees 

similarly situated.” 29 U.S.C. § 216(b). However, “[n]o employee shall be a party plaintiff to 

any such action unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party.” Id. 

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case was brought by Carolyn Dyer, who attempted to opt in to the class litigation

after the applicable deadline. Because Molina opposed Dyer’s motion to permit 

late opt in, the district court denied permission to opt in, and Dyer filed her own 

individual complaint against Molina. The district court entered a single order 

addressing attorney’s fees in both cases, and this Court has consolidated the 

appeals of both cases. 

The parties settled on terms allowing an award of attorney’s fees, expenses, 

and costs as determined by the district court. After considering the parties’ 

arguments, the district court entered an order awarding attorney’s fees, attendant 

expenses, and taxable costs in the amount of $488,875.13. 

On appeal, Molina challenges the district court’s fee calculation on three 

primary bases: (1) the reported hours expended by Plaintiffs’ counsel were 

unreasonable; (2) the district court should have applied a more significant 

downward adjustment of the lodestar; and (3) the fee award should not have 

included hours expended on the separate individual case brought by Dyer. After 

review, we affirm the district court’s fee award.

I. BACKGROUND

Before addressing the substance of Molina’s arguments, we briefly describe 

the factual background to give context for this appeal.

A. Plaintiffs’ Complaint and Molina’s Answer

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In December 2016, the named representative plaintiffs, Rodriguez and 

Wilkinson, filed their complaint in the District Court for the Northern District of 

Florida against Molina and its corporate parent, Molina Healthcare, Inc. (MHI). 

The complaint alleged Plaintiffs, and those similarly situated, had been unlawfully 

classified as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime provisions. 

On March 3, 2017, Molina responded to the complaint with a motion to 

dismiss and transfer venue to the Northern District of Illinois, arguing a first-filed 

class action pending in that court raised identical claims. In response, Plaintiffs 

dismissed MHI—the only defendant in the pending Illinois litigation—from the 

case and filed an amended complaint. In light of the dismissal of MHI, the district 

court denied Molina’s motion to dismiss on May 24, 2017. 

On July 6, 2017, following the denial of its motion to dismiss, Molina filed 

its answer and affirmative defenses. At that time, Molina denied liability, 

maintaining it had properly exempted Plaintiffs from overtime pay under the 

FLSA. 

B. Discovery

During the pendency of Plaintiffs’ original complaint, the district court 

entered an Initial Scheduling Order directing the parties to hold a conference under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f) and to submit a joint discovery plan. Before 

the parties were able to conduct a Rule 26(f) conference, however, Plaintiffs served 

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several discovery requests on Molina, including requests for admissions, requests 

for production of documents, and interrogatories. In response to these requests, 

Molina asked the district court for a protective order barring Plaintiffs’ discovery 

requests as premature and inconsistent with the court’s scheduling order. Plaintiffs 

eventually abandoned these initial discovery requests, though they subsequently 

issued a new set of requests—both collective and on behalf of each individual 

named and opt-in plaintiff—on June 26, 2017. According to Molina, Plaintiffs

served additional discovery requests on behalf of each individual plaintiff who 

subsequently opted in. 

On the same day it denied Molina’s motion to dismiss, the district court 

ordered the parties to conduct a Rule 26(f) conference and file a report by July 6, 

2017. It subsequently set a telephonic pretrial conference for July 10, 2017. 

As noted above, Molina filed its response to Plaintiffs’ amended complaint 

on July 6. That same day, the parties filed their Rule 26(f) report, in which Molina 

“maintain[ed] that plaintiffs and members of the putative collective were at all 

times properly classified and paid in accordance with the FLSA.” However, 

Molina noted that it had, in 2016, “voluntarily reclassified plaintiffs and members 

of the putative collective to non-exempt/overtime-eligible status and has since paid 

them overtime accordingly.” Molina further noted it was “negotiating a series of 

settlements nationwide, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)

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and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, designed to resolve 

claims identical to those asserted by plaintiffs and the putative class.” 

In light of these developments, Molina proposed that all discovery be stayed 

and the parties be directed to mediate. Plaintiffs opposed this proposal, insisting 

mediation would only be appropriate after substantial discovery. Molina 

subsequently filed a letter formally asking the district court to stay all discovery. 

Molina recounted its ongoing effort to settle similar claims and argued that much 

of the discovery Plaintiffs had to that point requested was “irrelevant given 

Molina’s position.” 

Following the July 10 telephonic conference, the district court entered a 

Scheduling and Mediation Order, which stated that Molina had “admitted on the

record . . . that the plaintiffs were not exempt from the [FLSA] requirement to pay 

overtime for overtime hours worked during the two- and three-year period at 

issue.” However, because Molina did not admit that its violation of the FLSA was 

willful, the case was to move forward with discovery. The district court did not 

specifically respond to Molina’s motion to stay discovery, but it set a discovery

period and ordered that the parties mediate within 14 days after the discovery 

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deadline. The district court eventually set the discovery deadline (via an amended 

scheduling order) for July 9, 2018.

2

 

In response to Plaintiffs’ continuing discovery requests on behalf of each 

new plaintiff who opted in to the case, Molina filed another motion for a protective 

order on October 24, 2017, again citing the DOL settlement and the Illinois 

litigation as providing a framework for settlement. Plaintiffs opposed the motion 

and moved the district court to compel Molina to comply with outstanding 

discovery requests. After a hearing, the district court entered an order limiting 

discovery on November 17, 2017. By that time, Plaintiffs had withdrawn their 

pending interrogatories, production requests, and admission requests. 

The district court therefore denied Molina’s motion for a protective order 

and Plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery as moot. It also denied Molina’s 

motion to stay discovery but limited Plaintiffs to 30 interrogatories on issues 

applicable to all plaintiffs, up to 3 plaintiff-specific interrogatories for each class 

2 The discovery deadline was originally set at 180 days after the deadline for new 

plaintiffs to opt in to the case. Once the parties agreed on the form and manner of notice to be 

sent to prospective class members, the district court entered an order approving the form of 

notice and setting the deadline for providing notice to class members as September 18, 2017. 

The court had previously set the opt-in deadline at 60-days after the date the notices were sent. 

As noted above, Appellee Dyer sought to intervene after that opt-in deadline. Although 

Plaintiffs’ counsel received Dyer’s opt-in consent form on December 6, 2017, the motion to 

allow her to opt in was not filed until February 15, 2018. Her request to opt in late was denied 

after Molina opposed the motion. She subsequently filed an individual complaint against 

Molina, which led to additional discovery requests. The discovery deadline in that case was 

September 6, 2018. 

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member, and production requests from up to 5 custodians of up to 20 categories of 

documents. Plaintiffs then issued a third set of discovery requests in line with the 

district court’s limitations. 

Molina also issued its own set of discovery requests, including requests for 

production and interrogatories seeking information from Plaintiffs and from each 

individual class member. As part of those interrogatories, the individual class 

members were asked to report the number of total hours they worked during the 

relevant time period. As discovery continued, however—and particularly as the

individual plaintiffs selected for trial were deposed—certain interrogatory answers 

concerning hours worked proved to be untruthful. 

D. Settlement

In its November 2017 order, the district court also instructed Plaintiffs to 

serve damages disclosures under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a). Plaintiffs 

initially claimed a total of approximately $11.5 million based on overtime hours 

worked by the 68 employees who were parties to the action. Plaintiffs 

subsequently filed amended disclosures claiming a total of over $12 million. 

The parties attempted to mediate and reach a settlement at least two times 

before eventually settling on the eve of trial. The first attempted mediation—

which concerned only the claims in the primary class action—occurred on May 22, 

2018, but that attempt ended in an impasse. The parties attempted mediation a 

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second time on September 18, 2018, this time attempting to resolve the claims in 

both the class action and Dyer’s individual action. This attempt too ended in an 

impasse. 

The district court eventually set a trial date of December 5, 2018. On 

November 29, 2018, six days before the trial and following several months of 

pretrial litigation, the parties filed a Notice of Settlement. The Settlement 

Agreement provided for a total settlement payment of $400,000, including 

payments to the named plaintiffs, opt-in plaintiffs, and Dyer for their overtime 

claims. In general, the amount paid to each individual plaintiff was much lower 

than the estimated damages for each plaintiff as reflected in the Rule 26(a) 

disclosures. 

Plaintiffs subsequently filed their motion for attorney’s fees, requesting a 

total of $510,922.00 in fees, plus $11,086.42 in costs. In support of that filing, 

Plaintiffs submitted declarations and logs establishing the hours worked and the 

reasonable hourly rates. Molina responded to the motion— raising several of the 

same arguments regarding the fee calculation it now makes on appeal—

challenging the reasonableness of the claimed hours and the overall fee. The 

district court rejected the majority of Molina’s arguments, though it did impose a 

modest reduction in the number of hours expended by Plaintiffs’ counsel. The 

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district court ultimately ordered Molina to pay a total fee amount of $488,875.13, 

including expenses and costs, which it found to be a reasonable overall fee. 

II. DISCUSSION

On appeal, Molina does not dispute that Plaintiffs were entitled to attorney’s 

fees, nor does it take issue with the hourly rate the district court used to calculate 

the lodestar. Rather, as noted above, Molina challenges the district court’s fee 

calculation on three bases, challenging (1) the reasonableness of the reported hours 

expended by plaintiffs’ counsel; (2) the appropriate adjustment of the lodestar; and 

(3) the inclusion of hours expended on the Dyer case. 

We review a district court’s award of attorney’s fees for abuse of discretion, 

reviewing underlying questions of law de novo and findings of fact for clear error. 

Atlanta Journal & Constitution v. City of Atlanta Dep’t of Aviation, 442 F.3d 1283, 

1287 (11th Cir. 2006). Under this standard, the district court enjoys “a range of 

choice . . . , so long as that choice does not constitute a clear error of judgment.” 

United States v. Kelly, 888 F.2d 732, 745 (11th Cir. 1989). To constitute an abuse 

of discretion, the district court must have “fail[ed] to apply the proper legal 

standard or to follow proper procedures in making the determination or base[d] an 

award . . . upon findings of fact that are clearly erroneous.” Mut. Serv. Ins. Co. v. 

Frit Indus., Inc., 358 F.3d 1312, 1322 (11th Cir. 2004). However, the district court 

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must “articulate its rulings in sufficient detail to enable us to accomplish a 

meaningful review.” Adams v. Mathis, 752 F.2d 553, 554 (11th Cir. 1985).

Here, the district court’s well-reasoned opinion sufficiently explained its 

decision and addressed Molina’s salient arguments. For the reasons explained 

below, we do not find that the district court abused its considerable discretion in 

calculating the proper fee award under the lodestar. 

A. Hours Reasonably Expended in Litigation

When a plaintiff prevails in a FLSA action, the district court “shall, in 

addition to any judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable 

attorney’s fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.” 29 U.S.C. 

§ 216(b). The first step in calculating a reasonable attorney's fee award is to 

determine the “lodestar”—the product of multiplying reasonable hours expended 

times a reasonable hourly rate. Am. Civil Liberties Union of Ga. v. Barnes, 168 

F.3d 423, 427 (11th Cir. 1999). The district court here found that (1) Plaintiffs’ 

attorneys worked the hours they claimed; (2) the claimed hourly rates were within 

the range customarily charged in the district; and (3) the claimed expenses would 

ordinarily be passed on to the client as part of the billing for attorney’s fees. 

However, Molina argued the number of hours reported by Plaintiffs’ 

attorneys were wholly unreasonable, and it maintains on appeal the district court 

abused its discretion in calculating the lodestar based on those reported hours. 

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Molina points to counsel’s failure to participate in early mediation, the repeated 

rafts of what Molina characterizes as unnecessary discovery, and unnecessary 

billing, which Molina attributes to “duplicative efforts in various phases of the 

litigation.” 

The district court considered and rejected these same arguments below, and 

we find it acted well within its discretion in doing so. See Kelly, 888 F.2d at 745. 

As to Plaintiffs’ supposed refusal to mediate, Molina takes issue with Plaintiffs’ 

resistance to Molina’s efforts to consolidate the instant litigation with a similar 

class action pending in the Northern District of Illinois. The district court noted 

that Plaintiffs’ counsel had achieved better results than those in the Illinois 

litigation, finding the Illinois litigation resulted in a recovery of just under 25% as 

much per employee. The district court declined to penalize Plaintiffs’ counsel for 

“work[ing] harder and obtain[ing] for their clients a multiple of the amount 

recovered in Illinois.” 

Molina dismisses the district court’s reasoning as “perfunctory” and insists 

the benefit to Plaintiffs and the class members of separately litigating their claims

was marginal. But we find the district court’s explanation sufficient, and we 

cannot say that its rejection of Molina’s argument constitutes a clear error in 

judgment. See Kelly, 888 F.2d at 745. Plaintiffs certainly could have opted to 

consolidate their claims with those in the related Illinois litigation, but they were

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under no obligation to do so, and we, like the district court, see no reason to 

penalize counsel for choosing to litigate their clients’ claims separately. 

The district court also rejected Molina’s assertion that Plaintiffs’ discovery 

requests were unnecessary and unreasonable, an assertion fundamentally premised 

on Molina’s contention that there was never any dispute as to liability. Because 

Molina conceded liability, it argues, Plaintiffs’ discovery requests concerning, for 

example, Molina’s alleged misclassification of the class members was unjustified 

as was any time spent preparing those requests. In rejecting this argument, the 

district court noted that, while Molina did indeed admit liability, it did not admit 

willfulness, so the merits of its decision not to pay overtime remained an issue in 

the litigation. The district court acknowledged that Plaintiffs had withdrawn 

certain discovery requests and may have pursued some lines of inquiry that were 

not, at the end of the day, relevant. But, on the whole, the district court found 

counsel’s conduct to be “reasonable, well-intentioned, and successful.” We find 

the district court’s explanation sensible. 

Molina’s characterization of the nature of the dispute in the district court

(i.e., that the only issue was the number of overtime hours worked) is an 

oversimplification. For one, it simply is not the case that there was never any 

dispute as to liability. Molina maintained, in both its answer and the subsequent 

Rule 26(f) report, that Plaintiffs and all members of the putative class were at all 

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relevant times properly classified. It was not until the July 2017 teleconference 

that Molina formally conceded liability, and, notably, a not insignificant portion of 

the three rounds of discovery requests Molina now points to as unnecessary were 

issued prior to that formal concession. Moreover, as the district court recognized, 

Molina did not admit willfulness, an issue that could have affected the ultimate 

damages award. See 29 U.S.C. § 255(a) (providing for an extended three-year 

limitations period where a cause of action arises out of a willful violation); 29 

U.S.C. § 260 (permitting a court to “award no liquidated damages” where an 

employer shows it “had reasonable grounds for believing that [its] act or omission 

was not a violation of the [FLSA]”).

With regard to counsel’s “unnecessary billing,” Molina points to the 

presence of multiple attorneys at depositions and to general “duplicative efforts in 

various phases of the litigation.” The district court was not persuaded that the 

presence of multiple attorneys at depositions merited an adjustment in the number 

of reasonable hours expended. After noting Molina itself was represented by three 

attorneys of record, the district court explained that it was entirely rational to 

assign more than a single attorney to a substantial case such as this one. Even so, 

the district court, after carefully reviewing the time records submitted by Plaintiffs’ 

counsel, concluded an adjustment for duplication was in order. Accordingly, the 

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district court’s order made a 50-hour adjustment for one specific attorney and a 2% 

across-the-board adjustment for all timekeepers. 

Molina asks us to find the district court’s adjustment insufficient, but we 

decline to substitute our judgment for that of the district court judge in the absence 

of some clear indication in the record that there was unnecessarily duplicative 

billing beyond that already accounted for in the lodestar calculation. The mere fact 

that multiple attorneys were assigned to the case or attended depositions does not, 

on its own, make counsel’s claimed hours unreasonable. While we have in the past 

recognized “the possibility of unnecessary duplication,” “[a]n award for time spent 

by two or more attorneys is proper as long as it reflects the distinct contribution of 

each lawyer to the case.” Johnson v. Univ. Coll. of Univ. of Ala. in Birmingham, 

706 F.2d 1205, 1208 (11th Cir. 1983). 

Notably, Molina has not identified—either in its briefing here or before the 

district court—the particular hours it believed were duplicative or should have 

been disallowed beyond asserting that multiple attorneys were present at 

depositions. Instead, Molina simply asserts that “counsels’ billing records 

evidence multiple instances of duplicative efforts” and generally points to time 

billed for “screening class members, preparing notices of opt-ins, and drafting 

disclosures and written discovery responses.” Molina, as the party opposing the 

fee application, had an obligation to identify the hours that should be excluded 

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with some degree of specificity. See Barnes, 168 F.3d at 428 (“Those opposing fee 

applications have obligations, too. In order for courts to carry out their duties in 

this area, ‘objections and proof from fee opponents’ concerning hours that should 

be excluded must be specific and ‘reasonably precise.’” (quoting Norman v. 

Housing Auth. of Montgomery, 836 F.2d 1292, 1301 (11th Cir. 1988))); see also 

Norman, 836 F.2d at 1301 (“Generalized statements that the time spent was 

reasonable or unreasonable of course are not particularly helpful and not entitled to 

much weight.”). For example, we have reversed a district court’s fee award where 

defendants, in opposition to the plaintiffs’ fee application, filed “a chart with colorcoded categorization of the requesting attorneys’ time sheets detailing what the 

defendants alleged were excessive, unreasonable, and duplicative hours included in 

the application.” Barnes, 168 F.3d at 426–27.

Having concluded the district court’s lodestar calculation was proper, we 

now address Molina’s claim the district court abused its discretion in declining to 

further adjust the lodestar to reflect a reasonable overall fee.

B. Downward Adjustment of the Lodestar

A lodestar figure “is itself strongly presumed to be reasonable.” Resolution 

Trust Corp. v. Hallmark Builders, Inc., 996 F.2d 1144, 1150 (11th Cir. 1993); see 

Perdue v. Kenny A. ex rel. Winn, 559 U.S. 542, 552 (2010) (“[W]e have said that 

the [lodestar reasonableness] presumption is a strong one.” (quotation marks 

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omitted)). Nonetheless, once the lodestar has been calculated, it may then be 

adjusted after considering other factors, such as the results obtained. Hensley v. 

Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434 (1983). Relevant here, when “a plaintiff has 

achieved only partial or limited success, the product of hours reasonably expended 

on the litigation as a whole times a reasonable hourly rate may be an excessive 

amount.” Id. at 436.

Molina insists the district court abused its discretion in declining to further 

reduce the lodestar because, it contends, Plaintiffs’ claims were based on frivolous 

demands (as reflected in Plaintiffs’ Rule 26(a) disclosures and the sworn responses 

to Molina’s interrogatories), Plaintiffs ultimately settled for an amount far below 

their initial demand, and the case was not complex and resulted in a nominal 

settlement amount. 

Here too, we find the district court acted within the bounds of its 

discretionary authority in declining to further adjust the lodestar. Molina first 

argues Plaintiffs’ initial damages estimates were grossly inflated and, indeed, 

fabricated. The district court acknowledged that certain class members apparently 

made excessive claims under oath, but concluded any allegedly fraudulent 

statements would only justify a reduction of the fee award if there was evidence 

the attorneys knew or should have known of the error. To the extent there was 

information available from which Plaintiffs’ counsel could have learned that the 

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various class members’ estimated damages were overstated, the district court noted 

that Molina’s delay in providing discovery concerning the number of hours worked 

by individual class members may have contributed to the problem. In any case, the 

district court found the effect of the inflated damages claims on the hours expended 

to be minimal. 

Molina criticizes the district court’s decision not to attribute fraudulent 

intent to Plaintiffs’ counsel, arguing the idea that Plaintiffs’ counsel (who drafted 

the Rule 26(a) disclosures interrogatory responses) was unaware of the fraudulent 

nature of the responses “strains credulity.” Molina overstates the degree to which 

the record compels the conclusion that Plaintiffs’ counsel knowingly put forward 

fabricated damages estimates. True, the attorneys drafted the disclosures and 

interrogatory responses, but they apparently did so based on information obtained 

from their clients and in the absence of fulsome records. Thus, we cannot say the 

district court’s finding that Plaintiffs’ counsel did not knowingly provide inflated 

or fraudulent damages estimates is clearly erroneous. See Atlanta Journal & 

Constitution, 442 F.3d at 1287; Mut. Serv. Ins. Co., 358 F.3d at 1322.

Molina also argues Plaintiffs’ inflated damages claims and their subsequent 

refusal to reduce their demands unnecessarily contributed to the continued 

expenditure of fees by both sides. The district court declined to fault Plaintiffs for 

not agreeing to accept $400,000 until shortly before trial, reasoning the record does 

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not support Molina’s suggestion Plaintiffs could have necessarily obtained the 

same result earlier or with less effort. Again, we do not find the record compels a 

contrary conclusion—i.e., that Plaintiffs in bad faith rejected substantially similar 

offers with the intent of unnecessarily prolonging litigation. 

As for the complexity of the case and the degree of Plaintiffs’ “success,” the 

district court disagreed with Molina’s contention that the award in this case was 

“nominal,” finding that, in fact, the recovery for these plaintiffs was “substantial.” 

The district court further noted that the Plaintiffs’ success should not be measured 

solely by the size of their recovery. Rather, the district court considered it 

important and beneficial to the public that the FLSA was successfully enforced:

[E]ach time the FLSA is enforced, it provides an incentive for 

employers to obey rather than flout the statute. This was not 

monumental litigation, and the case was settled, producing no 

precedential impact. But [Molina’s] effort to denigrate the willingness 

of these plaintiffs—and these attorneys—to pursue the litigation does 

not withstand analysis. 

We find this assessment of the Plaintiffs’ relative success to be wellreasoned. While it is obviously true that Plaintiffs in the end agreed to a damages 

award far below the initial multi-million-dollar estimate, it is not entirely fair to 

limit the assessment of Plaintiffs’ success to the size of the fee award. Plaintiffs 

were successful in all of their claims, and, as the district court noted, there is 

inherent value in enforcing the FLSA. See Parker v. DeKalb Chrysler Plymouth, 

673 F.2d 1178, 1180 (11th Cir. 1982) (“The FLSA . . . was conceived with a public

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and a private purpose: it established a set of individual rights that would create a 

healthier environment for all workers.”); see also Fegley v. Higgins, 19 F.3d 1126, 

1134–35 (6th Cir. 1994) (“Courts should not place an undue emphasis on the 

amount of the plaintiff’s recovery [in an FLSA case] because an award of attorney 

fees here encourages the vindication of congressionally identified policies and 

rights.” (quotation marks omitted)).

As for the relative complexity of the case, as we discussed above, Molina’s 

contention that this case is and has always been a simple dispute about damages is 

an oversimplification. Accordingly, we find no abuse of discretion in the district 

court’s decision not to adjust the lodestar and defer to its finding that the overall 

fee here was reasonable.

C. Fees Related to Dyer Case

The final issue Molina identifies with the district court’s fee award is its 

decision to include fees for time expended representing Appellee Dyer in her 

separate action against Molina. For its part, the district court would have allowed 

Dyer to opt in were it not for Molina’s opposition to the motion. The court 

therefore declined to punish Plaintiffs’ counsel for billing additional hours that 

were only necessary because of Molina’s tactical decision to oppose Dyer’s late 

opt-in. The district court further noted it was Dyer, not Plaintiffs’ counsel, who 

was responsible for her failure to meet the opt-in deadline. In any case, Dyer was 

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never obligated to opt in to the original action and was free all along to bring her 

own case. 

The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing separate fees for 

the Dyer action. Molina would place the lion’s share of the blame for the need to 

bring a separate action on Plaintiffs’ counsel, pointing to counsel’s apparent 

decision to wait until two months after receiving Dyer’s opt-in consent form to file 

a motion to allow her to join the case. But we find the district court’s contrary 

finding to be entirely reasonable. After all, Appellee Dyer was always free to 

bring her own case and to employ Plaintiffs’ attorneys as counsel. We see no 

reason to overturn the district court’s decision on this point and penalize Plaintiffs’ 

counsel for representing Dyer in a separate action.

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, we affirm the district court’s fee award in favor 

of Plaintiffs.

AFFIRMED.

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