There are circumstances in which the parties must obtain court approval to dismiss an action, and by extension, the parties’ settlement agreement. Courts consider a variety of factors when the parties request approval of a settlement agreement, attorney fees provided in a settlement agreement, and whether a court will even allow the parties to settle their dispute at the current stage of litigation. A case decided in the Eastern District of New York last month provides an excellent demonstration on how these factors may play out before a court, both for the circumstances explicitly relied on by the court, and as speculated in this article’s practice tips, the optics not explicitly referenced by the court. Although the court ultimately approved the parties’ settlement agreement, it reapportioned the amounts due under the agreement between the plaintiff and his attorneys.

Wage and Hour Action

In January 2017, plaintiff commenced an action against his employer, a meat distribution business, for claims pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York Labor Law (NYLL). Abreu v. Congregation Yetev Lev D’Satmar Meats & Poultry, No. 17-cv-272, 2019 WL 2526087, at *1 (E.D.N.Y. June 19, 2019). Plaintiff was employed as a meat packer and delivery worker for defendant for over three years and alleged that he was typically required to work approximately 60 hours per week with no overtime pay in excess of the standard 40-hour week, in violation of applicable law. (During the course of litigation, the parties entered into various stipulations that added and dismissed certain defendants. Id. at *1-2.) After approximately a year and a half of litigation, the parties agreed to resolve their dispute and submitted a motion for the court’s approval of the parties’ settlement agreement in August 2018, attaching the settlement agreement as an exhibit. Id. at *2.