Opinion ID: 180172
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: Plaintiffs, current and former employees of the New York City Police Department, sued the department and the City of New York (City) alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 201-219 (2006). They sought over $700 million in damages. The case proceeded to trial, and the plaintiffs were ultimately awarded $900,000 for the City's willful violation of FLSA's overtime compensation requirements. Afterward, the plaintiffs petitioned the court for attorney's fees pursuant to section 216(b) of the FLSA. Among plaintiffs' counsel seeking fees was Thomas P. Puccio. Puccio applied for $2,035,867.50 in fees. He based this number on an hourly rate of between $750 and $1,000 and a 96-page attachment of time entries totaling 2,090.87 hours of compensable time. The City opposed Puccio's fee application on the grounds that Puccio's proposed hourly rates were too high and that the entries in his attachment were insufficient to support the number of hours he claimed he had devoted to the case. The City argued, inter alia, that: (1) a significant number of entries, identical in punctuation, spacing, and even in typographical errors, appeared as many as four times in cyclical patterns; (2) the entries showed an excessive amount of time devoted to reviewing e-mails; (3) some entries appeared to pertain to issues unrelated to the FLSA litigation; (4) some entries referred to reviewing a summary judgment decision on dates before the decision was issued; and (5) some entries referred to preparation and attendance at trial for dates when there was no trial, including dates after the jury had rendered its verdict. (Appellant-Cross-Appellee's Br. 4-5 (alterations omitted).) Puccio responded to the City's opposition by filing a supplemental declaration in support of his application for fees. In it he admitted he did not make the time entries at the time he did the work memorialized in the entries. He stated that the entries were prepared instead by my office working with outside paralegal assistance under my general supervision. (J.A. 1498.) He asserted that the paralegals based the entries on an extensive database of incoming emails maintained in by [sic] my law firm in a computer folder. Id.