Chad A. Leonhardt vs. Dodge Ridge Mountain Resort, LLC

This is a wage/hour dispute. Before the Court this day is a petition for final approval of a settlement involving both class and PAGA claims. As noted in the preliminary ruling on 08/08/2025, and recent hearings, this Court is loath to rubber-stamp line item deductions from the aggrieved employee pool absent some reason to believe the litigation involved something more than neighborly efforts to exchange information and attend a single mediation designed primarily to immunize the employer from competing lawsuits. The concept that these cases are particularly hard or risky presupposes an employer fighting the charges, but a review of the legal billing statements in this case shows that any “fighting” in this case was illusory. The GSA of $450,000 to cover 790 individuals subjected to virtually every wage/hour violation under the sun for more than five years is quite de minimus when considering the potential exposure on the claims exceeded $5M in the aggregate. Based on these lackluster results, this Court sees no legal basis or justification for any requested upward multiplier. There was nothing unique, difficult or complex about this garden-variety wage/hour dispute. Moreover, the results suggest that there was no real effort to secure the highest and best settlement for the pool of employees. Counsel’s request to use an hourly rate of $550 is reasonable, and based on the stated actual hours of 152, the produces a comparative lodestar of $83,600 plus paralegal fees of $8,400 – which is roughly 55% of the amount requested. Using a typical 28% contingency fee, that produces a fee of $126,000. This Court elects to “split the difference” and award $105,000 in fees. As for the representative enhancements, the parties were forewarned in August that they would be “required to support any request with a detailed declaration of the time and effort expended on this case” and they failed to comply with this simple directive, standing on their previous “I estimate 25/30” hours of effort” declaration. The assertion that they spent time “researching” and talking with their lawyers and preparing for this and that suggests perhaps the 25 hours noted, but asking for $10,000 equates to $400/hr – which is significantly more than the paralegals are charging, and 20x what these individuals earned while working. They shall each receive a fee of $4,000 for their sacrifice.

All other fees/costs are approved except that PAGA allocations have changed (see Labor Code §2699(m) and should be adjusted accordingly in the proposed order.