Cabrera v. Schafer

Citation178 F.Supp.3d 69
Decision Date13 April 2016
Docket Number12–CV–6323 (ADS) (AKT)
Parties Efrain Reyes Cabrera, Plaintiffs, v. Thomas Schafer and Dream Team Tavern Corp., doing business as Tommy's Place, Defendants.
CourtUnited States District Courts. 2nd Circuit. United States District Court (Eastern District of New York)

Frank & Associates, P.C., 500 Bi-county Boulevard, Suite 112N, Farmingdale, NY 11735, By: Neil Frank, Esq., Alyssa T Marino, Esq., Patricia Lynne Boland, Esq., Of Counsel, Attorneys for the Plaintiff.

Gruenberg & Kelly, PC, 3275 Veterans Highway B–9, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779, By: Sean Patrick Kelly, Esq., Zachary M Beriloff, Esq., Glenn E Auletta, Esq., Of Counsel, Attorneys for the Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION & ORDER

SPATT

, District Judge.

On April 7, 2014 the Plaintiff Efrain Reyes Cabrera (the Plaintiff) filed an amended complaint against his former employers Thomas Schafer (Schafer) and Dream Team Tavern Corp., doing business as Tommy's Place (“Tommy's Place” and collectively, the Defendants). The Plaintiff asserts that the Defendants violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq.

(the “FLSA”) and New York Labor Law § 650 et seq. for failing to pay him overtime wages and spread of hours wages; and violated NYLL § 195 for failing give the Plaintiff proper notice of his rate of pay and the basis for calculating his rate of pay.

The Defendants deny the Plaintiff's claims, asserting that they did not fail to pay the Plaintiff overtime compensation; the Plaintiff did not work more than forty hours per week; the Defendants maintained accurate documentation regarding the hours worked by the Plaintiff and the wages paid to him; and the Defendants notified the Plaintiff of his rate of pay and the basis of his rate of pay in compliance with NYLL § 195.

Jury selection is scheduled for April 25, 2016.

Presently before the Court is (i) a motion in limine by the Defendants pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence (Fed.R.Evid.) 201

for an order taking judicial notice of adjudicative facts related to a hearing before the Workers' Compensation Board of the State of New York (the Workers' Compensation Board); and (ii) a motion in limine for an order admitting into evidence at trial the Plaintiff's purported Social Security Card and Resident Alien Card.

For the reasons set forth below, the Defendants' motions in limine are denied.

I. DISCUSSION
A. As to Judicial Notice

As noted, the Defendants request that the Court take judicial notice of adjudicative facts related to a Workers' Compensation Board proceeding initiated by the Plaintiff seeking compensation for an alleged injury that he suffered while working for the Defendants. (See Auletta Decl., Ex. 1.) In support of their request, they attach a transcript from a June 3, 2013 hearing before Workers' Compensation Law (“WCL”) Judge Michael Rubino (the June 3, 2013 Hearing”), during which the Plaintiff testified that on November 2, 2012, he was injured, “move[ing] the case[s] as part of his duties as a cook for the Defendants. (Id. at 3–4.) Also at the hearing, the attorney for Rochdale Insurance Company, the Defendants' insurance carrier, offered evidence of an unsigned time card purportedly showing that the Plaintiff was not at work on November 2, 2012, the day he claimed to have been injured, as well as testimony of the Defendant Schafer that the Plaintiff was not at work on that day. (Id. at 12–21.)

At the conclusion of the hearing, the WCL Judge Rubino ruled from the bench, “I cannot conclude that there was any such accident, this claim is an obvious afterthought and disallowed.” (Id. at 23.)

The Defendants also attach to their motion, a copy of a July 8, 2014 decision rendered by the Administrative Review Division of the Workers' Compensation Board affirming Judge Rubino's decision (the July 8, 2014 Appeals Decision”). (See Auletta Decl., Ex. 3.)

Based on these decisions, the Defendants request that the Court take judicial notice of certain quotes from the June 3, 2013 Hearing and the July 8, 2014 Appeals Decision as well as other facts purportedly gleaned from the decisions. (See Auletta Decl., at ¶ 10.)

Fed. R. Evid. 201(b)

states that [t]he court may judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute because it: (1) is generally known within the trial court's territorial jurisdiction; or (2) can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.”

The Defendants appear to assert—without providing any legal authority in support of their position—that the quotes and other alleged facts gleaned from the decisions of the Workers' Compensation Board fall under the provisions of Subsection 201(b)(2), and therefore the Court must take judicial notice of them. (See Auletta Decl. at ¶¶ 2–3.)

For his part, the Plaintiff contends that he was not afforded “proper due process” in the Workers' Compensation proceedings because he is a Spanish speaker and “was not provided with an interpreter at the Worker's [sic] Compensation hearing.” (Boland Decl. at ¶¶ 4–7.) Thus, he asserts that judicial notice should be not be taken of the June 3, 2013 Hearing and the July 8, 2014 Appeals Decision because [the] Plaintiff disputes the facts presented at the Workers' Compensation hearing as a result of his inability to understand the questions without an interpreter.” (Id. at ¶ 10.)

Fed. R. Evid. 201(c)

provides that a court “must take judicial notice if a party requests it and the court is supplied with the necessary information.” In a civil case, once the court takes judicial notice of adjudicative facts under Rule 201(c), “there is to be no evidence before the jury in disproof,” and [t]he judge instructs the jury to take judicially noticed facts as established.” Fed. R. Evid. 201, Advisory Committee Note G.

Accordingly, “[b]ecause the effect of judicial notice is to deprive a party of the opportunity to use rebuttal evidence, cross-examination, and argument to attack contrary evidence, caution must be used in determining that a fact is beyond controversy under Rule 201(b)

.” Int'l Star Class Yacht Racing Ass'n v. Tommy Hilfiger U.S.A., Inc., 146 F.3d 66, 70 (2d Cir.1998) ; see also

Canadian St. Regis Bank of Mohawk Indians v. New York, No. 5:82–CV–0783, 2013 WL 3992830, at *12 (N.D.N.Y. July 23, 2013) (“With respect to judicial notice of adjudicative facts, the tradition has been one of caution in requiring that the matter be beyond reasonable controversy. This tradition of circumspection appears to be soundly based, and no reason to depart from it is apparent.”) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 201, Advisory Committee Note B)).

[T]he rules concerning judicial notice of other proceedings are not as straightforward as they first appear; indeed, when it comes to taking judicial notice of other court proceedings, courts frequently get it wrong.’ Guzman v. United States, No. 11 CIV. 5834(JPO), 2013 WL 543343, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 14, 2013)

(quoting 21B Charles Alan Wright & Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., Federal Practice and Procedure § 5106.4 at 234 (2d ed.2005) ).

In that regard. courts routinely “take judicial notice of documents filed in other courts,” including workers' compensation hearings. See Svensson v. Securian Life Ins. Co., 706 F.Supp.2d 521, 534 n. 18 (S.D.N.Y.2010)

(“The Court ... properly can take judicial notice of the Workers' Compensation Board's decision that is to the same effect.”); Pelosi v. Spota, 607 F.Supp.2d 366, 371 (E.D.N.Y.2009) (“Thus, in the instant case, the Court can consider all of the documents attached to plaintiff's complaint, including the psychiatric evaluation and the relevant portion of the transcript of the 1995 Workman's Compensation trial in state court. In any event, the Court can take judicial notice of the transcript and exhibits from these state proceedings.”).

However, and importantly, a court may only take judicial notice of documents from prior proceedings “to establish the fact of such litigation and related filings” and “not for the truth of the matters asserted in the other litigation.” Kramer v. Time Warner Inc., 937 F.2d 767, 774 (2d Cir.1991)

; see also

Elliott v. Nestle Waters N. Am. Inc., No. 13 CIV. 6331 RA, 2014 WL 1795297, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. May 6, 2014) ([T]he Court may properly take judicial notice of the decisions to the extent that they establish that such decisions were rendered, though not to establish the truth of any matter asserted in the decisions.”).

For example, in Guzman v. United States, supra,

on a motion to dismiss, a district court rejected a defendants' request to take judicial notice of various facts related to a decision rendered in a prior criminal proceeding. 2013 WL 543343 at *3–4. That is because the court found that the defendants' request was “tantamount to accepting as true” the underlying testimony and findings of fact in the prior court order, which the court found would be improper. Id. at *4. Accordingly, the court took judicial notice of the prior order but did not consider the prior judge's “findings of fact, nor the testimony cited in his opinion.” Id. ; see also

Corley v. Jahr, No. 11 CIV. 9044(RJS)(KNF), 2013 WL 265450, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 24, 2013), report and recommendation adopted , No. 11 CIV. 9044(RJS)(KNF), 2013 WL 1453367 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 28, 2013) (“However, the Court does not take judicial notice of any factual findings recited in the state courts' opinions or any conclusions based on those findings, since those findings are not admissible for their truth in this action.”).

Here, the Defendants do not simply ask the Court to take judicial notice of the facts that the Plaintiff initiated a proceeding before the Workers' Compensation Board, a WCL Judge denied his request, and the Workers' Compensation Board denied his subsequent appeal. Rather, they ask the Court to take judicial notice of select quotes from the June 3, 2013 Hearing and the Board's July 8, 2014 Appeals Decision.

The Court finds the Defendants' request to be improper for a number of reasons.

First, the Defendants seeks to establish the truth...

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