Daniel Baten Rojas v. Pizza Pete's LLC, 1:17-cv-02929

Plaintiff (Baten Rojas) worked as a delivery worker and performed non-tipped store tasks at Pizza Pete’s from April 2013–April 2017 (plaintiff alleges; defendants dispute duration).
Plaintiff claims he was underpaid: minimum-wage shortfalls, unpaid overtime at 1.5x, NY "spread-of-hours" pay, and missing wage notices/statements; estimates ~$78,762 unpaid wages and ~$185,000 total damages.
Defendants admit some overtime liability, deny full four-year tenure (claim ~2.5 years), and have no time records.
Parties negotiated a global FLSA/NYLL settlement for $100,000 inclusive of attorneys’ fees and costs: $692 costs to counsel, $33,102.67 (1/3) contingency fee to counsel, and $66,205.33 to plaintiff.
Magistrate Judge Pitman reviewed the settlement under FLSA fairness standards and found the overall compromise reasonable but concluded the one-third fee was excessive relative to counsel’s lodestar ($11,426.25).
The Judge conditionally approved the settlement only if counsel agreed to reduce fees to twice the lodestar ($22,852.50) with the difference paid to plaintiff; counsel given 10 days to accept.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the FLSA settlement is a fair and reasonable compromise	Settlement reasonably compensates for claimed unpaid wages and avoids litigation risk	Settlement is acceptable and was negotiated; defendants previously made lower offer at conference	Settlement is reasonable on its merits and satisfies FLSA factors (range of recovery, risks, costs, arm's-length bargaining, no fraud) but approval conditioned on fee reduction
Appropriate attorneys’ fee award from settlement	Counsel seeks one-third contingency fee ($33,102.67) as agreed in retainer	No opposition argued to fee amount; court evaluates reasonableness	One-third fee is excessive given lodestar; court orders fee reduced to 2x lodestar and remand difference to plaintiff unless counsel accepts
Scope of plaintiff’s release	Release limited to wage-and-hour claims	Not contested	Release is narrowly tailored and permissible
Whether settlement resulted from arm’s-length bargaining	Parties negotiated at supervised settlement conference; figure exceeds defendant’s best offer	Same	Court finds settlement resulted from arm’s-length bargaining and no indicia of fraud

Lynn’s Food Stores, Inc. v. United States, 679 F.2d 1350 (11th Cir. 1982) (FLSA settlements should be approved when they resolve bona fide disputes)
Wolinsky v. Scholastic Inc., 900 F. Supp. 2d 332 (S.D.N.Y.) (factors for assessing fairness of FLSA settlements)
Fujiwara v. Sushi Yasuda Ltd., 58 F. Supp. 3d 424 (S.D.N.Y.) (multiplier guidance for lodestar in FLSA contingency cases)