Espinal v. Sephora U.S., Inc.

1

ROSALBA ESPINAL et al., Plaintiffs, v. SEPHORA USA, INC., Defendant.

No. 22 Civ. 3034 (PAE) (GWG)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

November 12, 2024

OPINION & ORDER

PAUL A. ENGELMAYER, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

On September 19, 2024, the Court denied defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' complaint in this putative class action, which claims that Sephora USA, Inc. (“Sephora”) failed to pay plaintiffs and similarly situated employees timely wages in violation of New York Labor Law (“NYLL”) § 191. See Espinal v. Sephora USA, Inc., No. 22 Civ. 3034 (PAE) (GWG), 2024 WL 4241537, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Sept 19, 2024) Espinal”). Sephora timely sought reconsideration of that decision and, in the alternative certification of an interlocutory appeal. Dkts. 103, 105. For the reasons that follow, the Court denies both motions.

I. Background

The Court assumes familiarity with the facts, which are set out more fully in the decision denying Sephora's motion to dismiss. See id. at *1-2. In brief, plaintiffs Rosalba Espinal and Juan Rivera (“plaintiffs”) sued their former employer, Sephora, alleging that Sephora's practice of paying employees on a biweekly basis violates the requirement of NYLL § 191 (1)(a)(i) that manual workers be paid weekly. On February 15, 2024 Sephora moved to dismiss, arguing that there is neither an express nor an implied private right of action for such violations of § 191. Dkt. 75. On July 31, 2024, United States Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein issued a Report and Recommendation (the “Report”) reaching that conclusion and recommending dismissal. Dkt. 89. In its September 19, 2024 decision, this Court declined to adopt that recommendation and, joining the weight of district court authority on the issue, found that NYLL § 191 expressly and impliedly gives rise to a private right of action for such claims. Dkt. 99. On September 30, 2024, Sephora filed the instant motions for reconsideration and for certification of an interlocutory appeal. Dkts. 103, 105. On October 15, 2024, plaintiffs opposed. Dkts. 11011.

II. Sephora's Motion for Reconsideration

The standard governing motions for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) “is strict, and reconsideration will generally be denied unless the moving party can point to controlling decisions or data that the court overlooked.” Analytical Surveys, Inc. v. Tonga Partners, L.P., 684 F.3d 36, 52 (2d Cir. 2012) (citation omitted); see also S.D.N.Y. L.R. 6.3 (requiring the movant to “set[] forth concisely the matters or controlling decisions which counsel believes the court has overlooked”). Such a motion “is neither an occasion for repeating old arguments previously rejected nor an opportunity for making new arguments that could have been previously advanced,” Assoc. Press v. U.S. Dep'tof Def, 395 F.Supp.2d 17, 19 (S.D.N.Y. 2005); see also Goonan v. Fed. Reserve Bank of N.Y., No. 12 Civ. 3859, 2013 WL 1386933, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 5, 2013) (“Simply put, courts do not tolerate such efforts to obtain a second bite at the apple.”). Rather, reconsideration is appropriate “only when the [moving party] identifies an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Kolel Beth Yechiel Mechil of Tartikov, Inc. v. YLL Irrevocable Tr., 729 F.3d 99, 104 (2d Cir. 2013) (citation omitted). Rule 60(b) is thus considered a “mechanism for extraordinary judicial relief invoked only if the moving party demonstrates exceptional circumstances.” Ruotolo v. City of New York, 514 F.3d 184, 191 (2d Cir. 2008) (citation omitted).

Sephora has not met this high bar. It does not bring to bear any new arguments on the purely legal issue on which the Court's resolution of the motion to dismiss turned. Its sole argument is that this Court erroneously applied de novo review as opposed to clear error review. Dkt. 104 at 1 A. Its basis for so arguing is that, before this Court, plaintiffs “simply reiterate[d]” the arguments they had made before Judge Gorenstein, thus calling for clear error review. Id. at 1; see also Espinal, 2024 WL 4241537, at *2 (“[I]f a party objecting to a Report and Recommendation makes only conclusory or general objections, or simply reiterates its original arguments, the Court will review the Report strictly for clear error.”) (quoting Dickerson v. Conway, No. 08 Civ. 8024 (PAE), 2013 WL 3199094, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. June 25, 2013).

There are three independent flaws with Sephora's argument.

To begin with, the error below, in this Court's assessment, qualified as clear and fundamental, see Miller v. Brightstar Asia, Ltd., 43 F.4th 112, 121 (2d Cir. 2022), and one whose correction is needed to “prevent manifest injustice.” Kolel, 729 F.3d at 104 (internal quotation marks omitted). The disputed issue was one of pure law. It did not turn on case-specific factual nuances as to which reasonable minds could differ. In the context of an appeal from a district court judgment, determinations of purely legal questions by their nature are reviewable de novo by appellate courts; a higher court does not give deference to a lower court's resolution of a pure question of law. See United States v. Delis, 558 F.3d 177, 180 (2d Cir. 2009) (Livingston, C.J.) (when dealing with “a matter of statutory interpretation, which is purely a question of law, our review is de novo”). In the context of a district court's review of a magistrate judge's recommendation, however, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72 governs. See Miller, 43 F.4th at 121.

Under Rule 72(b)(3), whether de novo review applies turns on whether “the magistrate judge's disposition ... has been properly objected to.” Id. A party fails to properly object if it “makes only conclusory or general objections, or simply reiterates [his or her] original arguments.” Silva v. Peninsula Hotel, 509 F.Supp.2d 364, 366 (S.D.N.Y. 2007). Recently, however, the Second Circuit cast doubt on the notion that a district court is obliged to apply clear error review where the claimed error in the Report was a “fundamental one”; i.e., where the objecting party “t[akes] issue with a specific legal conclusion,” even where, in its objections, the party challenging a Report reiterates its earlier well-formulated arguments. Miller, 43 F.4th at 121; see also Ramgoolie v. Ramgoolie, No. 22-1409, 2024 WL 4429420, at *2 (2d Cir. Oct. 7, 2024) (noting “skepticism concerning the application of clear-error review” where the objecting party disputes a “fundamental” legal issue, even where the party “sought to relitigate an issue that was fully argued in the original briefs to the magistrate judge” (internal quotation marks omitted)). This Court shares the Circuit's skepticism.

This Court's resolution of a challenge to a Report in Norris v. Goldner, No. 19 Civ. 5491 (PAE) (SN), 2023 WL 5477229 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 24, 2023), is illustrative. The dispute at issue there centered on the interpretation of a contract-a purely legal question. In departing from the Report, the Court weighed whether it was obliged to apply deferential review given Norris's claim that defendants' objections were “identical” to the arguments they had made before the magistrate judge. See id. at *5 n.8 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court rejected that argument, noting that “[the] notion that a party that develops before the district judge an argument that had been made before the magistrate judge must establish clear error at the second stage would all but eliminate de novo review of reports, given that new legal theories ‘cannot properly be raised for the first time in objections to the report and recommendation, and indeed may not be deemed objections at all.'” Id. (quoting Piligian v. Icahn Sch. of Med. at Mount Sinai, 490 F.Supp.3d 707, 716 (S.D.N.Y. 2020); see also Watson v. Geithner, No. 11 Civ. 9527 (AJN) (HBP), 2013 WL 5441748, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 27, 2013) (noting tension created by requiring new arguments upon review of a Report while forbidding arguments that are so new as to be deemed unpreserved). The Court accordingly reviewed the pure legal question at issue de novo, reiterating the Second Circuit's observation that, “[t]o the extent that the objection sought to revisit an issue already argued, it was only because ... the magistrate judge's specific error was a fundamental one.” Norris, 2023 WL 5477229, at *5 n.8 (quoting Miller, 43 F.4th at 121); see also, e.g., McCoy v. Admin, for Children's Servs., No. 23 Civ. 3019 (HG) (SJB), 2024 WL 4344791, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2024) (applying de novo review to disputed legal question, even though the objection to the Report aired “the same argument she previously presented” to the magistrate).

Similarly here, the sole issue before this Court in its September 19 decision was a purely legal, and fundamental, question. The Court drew its conclusion-that NYLL § 191 gives rise to a private right of action for claims of infrequent wage pay-based on the statutory text, context, purpose, and legislative history. The Court found particularly persuasive the Supreme Court's interpretation of a parallel provision of the FLSA. See Espinal, 2024 WL 4241537 at *5-6 (“[I]t is well-established-and has been for nearly 80 years-that § 216 of the FLSA authorizes the recovery of liquidated damages as compensation for delayed payments under the Act... The courts that have found a private right of action under the NYLL, such as the First Department in Vega, have noted the New York Legislature's intention that its remedial provisions provide at least equal protection to workers as those as of the FLSA.”). Accordingly, as the Court's analysis in Espinal reflected, the assembled legal materials bearing on whether NYLL § 191 ...