Attorney's Fee in An Overtime Case

After a paralegal voluntarily quit her former law firm, she retained a lawyer to sue her former firm for failing to pay her 1.5 times her normal rate of pay when she worked overtime, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The law firm served the paralegal with discovery requests, asking her to disclose the total number of overtime hours she worked and all evidence supporting her claims. The paralegal objected to the requests, and the law firm tendered an offer of judgment for $3,500 plus attorneys fees and costs. The paralegal accepted, and asked the court to award her $13,800 in attorney’s fees and $1,840 in costs. The law firm objected to the amount of attorney’s fees, and the Eleventh Circuit agreed. In denying the attorney’s fees request, the Court ruled that the paralegal’s attorney exhibited a lack of collegiality and wasted judicial time and resources on unnecessary litigation by failing to give the defendants any advance notice of the suit. Although the Eleventh Circuit limited its ruling to cases in which lawyers are parties to a litigation, employers should be aware that the conduct of attorneys may have an affect on a Court.

Sahyers v. Prugh, Holliday & Karatinos, P.L., No. 08-10848 (11th Cir. Mar. 3, 2009)