Huer Huang v. Shanghai City Corp.

• Decision Date: 11 May 2020
• Docket Number: 19-cv-7702 (LJL)
• Citation: 459 F.Supp.3d 580
• Parties: HUER HUANG, et al., Plaintiffs, v. SHANGHAI CITY CORP., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

459 F.Supp.3d 580

HUER HUANG, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.SHANGHAI CITY CORP., et al., Defendants.

19-cv-7702 (LJL)

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

Signed May 11, 2020

Aaron B. Schweitzer, Leanghour Lim, John Troy, Troy Law, PLLC, Flushing, NY, for Plaintiffs.

David B. Horowitz, Fong & Wong, P.C., New York, NY, for Defendants Shanghai City Corp., Shanghai Duplicate Corp., Shanghai Original Inc., East Brother, Corp., Kiu Sang Si, Yiu Fai Fong, Gui Bing Shi, William Ko, Yun Cai, John Zhang, Tun Yee Lam, Terry Ho.

Xue Jing Huang, Huang, Chen & Wu PLLC, Flushing, NY, for Defendant Mimi Si.

Lynn Ellen Judell, Shechtman Halperin Savage LLP, White Plains, NY, for Defendant Lillian Liou.

OPINION & ORDER

LEWIS J. LIMAN, United States District Judge:

Visitors to New York's Chinatown are advised not to miss an opportunity to stop off at Joe's Shanghai to sample their celebrated soup-dumplings.¹ The question presented by this case is whether that restaurant and the company and individuals who own it are legally responsible for the labor law violations of other Joe's Shanghai restaurants offering the same soup dumplings.

Plaintiffs are employees who worked at one of two Joe's Shanghai restaurants. Eight of the plaintiffs worked at the West 56^th Street location of Joe's Shanghai ("Midtown location") in jobs ranging from "meat and miscellaneous worker," to packer, to sorter, to dishwasher, to cutter, and to delivery man. First Amended Complaint, Dkt. No. 17 ("FAC") ¶¶ 25-32. One plaintiff worked as a dishwasher at the Flushing location of Joe's Shanghai ("Flushing location"). FAC ¶ 33. A tenth plaintiff is identified only as a "xiaolongtangbao assistant chef and chef," without a location. FAC ¶ 34.

The defendants include the corporation that operated the Midtown location of Joe's Shanghai, Shanghai City Corp., FAC ¶ 35, and the two corporations that, at different times, owned and managed the Flushing location, East Brother Corp. and Shanghai Original Inc. FAC ¶¶ 41, 44.² The defendants also include Shanghai Duplicate Corp., which operates the Joe's Shanghai at 9 Pell Street in the Chinatown area of Manhattan ("Chinatown location"). FAC ¶ 38.

Plaintiffs also name 12 individual defendants. FAC ¶¶ 47-71. Three of those individuals, Yiu Fai Fong, Tun Yee Lam, and Gui Bing Shi, own or manage the Flushing location alone. FAC ¶¶ 50-54. Three others, Kui Song Si, Solomon C. Liou, and William Ko, own or manage the Midtown location alone. FAC ¶¶ 48, 56, 60.

One individual, Kiu Sang Si ("Si"), is alleged to have been the founder of the Joe's Shanghai Group of Restaurants, the 50% owner of the Chinatown and Midtown locations, and the CEO of Shanghai Original. FAC ¶ 48.

Two individuals, Lillian Liou and Cheng Kueng Liu, are the other owners of the Chinatown location, each holding a 25% interest. But they are alleged to have no other role, and no role with respect to the Midtown or Flushing locations. FAC ¶¶ 62, 64. Two others, Yun Cai and John Zhang, are each kitchen managers at the Chinatown location, and Terry Ho is described only as "[an] officer" of the Chinatown location. FAC ¶¶ 66, 68 70. (These individuals, along with Shanghai Duplicate Corp., are referred to collectively as the "Chinatown Defendants").

Plaintiffs allege that Defendants violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 215 ("FLSA") and the New York Labor Law, N.Y. Lab. Law § 215 ("NYLL") by engaging in a pattern and practice of failing to paying their employees, including Plaintiffs, minimum wage for each hour worked and overtime compensation for all hours worked over forty (40) each week. FAC ¶ 2. Plaintiff Haihua Zhai also alleges that she is entitled to recover out of pocket expenses to delivery experts on the road. FAC ¶¶ 5-6.

Defendants now move, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c), for judgment on the pleadings against the Chinatown defendants. They also move, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), for to dismiss the claims made by individual plaintiffs Lianqin Lu, Hui Zhen Huang, Juan Li, and Haihua Zhai on the grounds that their claims don't fall within the FLSA statute of limitations period and the Court lacks supplemental jurisdiction over their NYLL claims. Finally, Defendants move for an order preventing Plaintiffs from pursuing a class action with their current counsel, the law office of Mr. Troy.

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The path that led Plaintiffs to this case is long and somewhat tortured. This is only the most recent of a series of FLSA and NYLL lawsuits against Joe's Shanghai restaurants filed in the state and federal courts of New York. The history of those lawsuits was ably recounted by Judge Caproni in Lin v. Shanghai City Corp. , 329 F.R.D. 36, 37–39 (S.D.N.Y. 2018), and will be recounted only in brief here.

In October 2016, Jianmin Jin and Chunyou Xie, two former members of the kitchen staff at the Flushing location, brought a collective action alleging FLSA and NYLL violations by a group of corporate and individual defendants associated with the three Joe's Shanghai restaurants. The individual defendants included Si, who is also a defendant here and the linchpin to Plaintiffs’ claim here against Chinatown.

During the course of that litigation, Magistrate Judge Orenstein certified an FLSA collective action on behalf of workers at the Flushing location (but not the Chinatown or Midtown locations). See Jin v. Shanghai Original, Inc. , 2018 WL 1597389 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 2, 2018). Judge Ross subsequently granted the defendants’ motion to decertify the class of workers at the Flushing location. See Order Decertifying the Class, Jin v. Shanghai Original, Inc. , 2018 WL 1597389, 16-cv-5633 (Jul. 10, 2019), Dkt. No. 181. In her opinion declining to certify a class consisting of employees at all three locations, Judge Ross noted that "the record developed in discovery shows that there was no common unlawful employment policy or practice shared by the Midtown and Flushing locations," Jin v. Shanghai Original, Inc. , 2018 WL 1597389, at *1 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 2, 2018), and that "[a]lthough they share a single name and website, the three locations of Joe's Shanghai are now independently owned and managed." Id. The court also noted that one of the opt-in plaintiffs—Xie He—"worked at the Flushing, Midtown, and Chinatown locations of Joe's Shanghai at various times," id. at *2, and another "[o]pt-in plaintiff Hui Qui Chen worked at both the Chinatown and Midtown locations." Id. In a later opinion, Judge Ross found that Si had not been involved in running the Flushing location since 2012 and that "[t]he owners of the Flushing location are not involved in managing the Chinatown and Midtown locations, and vice versa," but that "[i]n 2014 and 2015, Si would use East Brother [Corp.]’s truck three days per week to deliver food to the Chinatown and Midtown restaurants." Jin v. Sanghai Original, Inc. , 2019 WL 3244187 at *1 (E.D.N.Y. July 19, 2019).

Some of the plaintiffs in Jin are also plaintiffs here. Specifically, Plaintiffs Huer Huang, Lianqin Lu, Hui Zhen Huang, Juan Li, and Haihua Zhai participated in Jin as collective members but their claims were dismissed without prejudice and no final judgment was entered as to them.

Shortly after the Eastern District denied conditional collective certification to employees of the Chinatown location and denied leave to amend the complaint, several plaintiffs filed suit in New York State Supreme Court, New York County, alleging violations of NYLL and the New York General Business Law ("NYGBL") based on similar allegations. A few months after filing the lawsuit, plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed it with prejudice. See Lin , 329 F.R.D. at 38.

On February 9, 2018, the same day as they dismissed the state court action, the same plaintiffs filed a second Eastern District action containing identical allegations but pleading FLSA causes of action in addition to the New York state claims. That action was voluntarily dismissed. Id.

A few days later, one of the plaintiffs in the Jin action, Jian Ying Lin, filed a Southern District action alleging FLSA, NYLL, and NYGBL causes of action. Three of the plaintiffs here—Gloria Perez Mendez, Clara Flores, and Reyes Perez Guerrero—opted into the Lin action. On November 6, 2018, the District Court granted summary judgment to the defendants against the named plaintiffs in Lin but dismissed the claims of Mendez, Flores and Guerrero without prejudice. Id. at 36, 43.

On August 16, 2019, Plaintiffs (including opt-in Plaintiffs from Jin and Lin whose claims were dismissed without prejudice) instituted this action by filing a complaint against Defendants. See Dkt No. 1. On October 8, 2019, Plaintiffs filed their First Amended Complaint. Dkt No 17. On March 6, 2020, Defendants filed their motion for judgment on the pleadings, Dkt No. 75. Plaintiffs filed their memorandum in opposition on April 3, 2020, Dkt No. 87, and Defendants filed their reply brief on April 17, 2020. Dkt No 88.

DISCUSSION

1. Defendants’ Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings Against the Chinatown Defendants

Plaintiffs are employees of two Joe's Shanghai restaurants, the Flushing location and the Midtown location, and allege that those restaurants violated the FLSA and the NYLL. See FAC ¶¶ 25–32, 33–34, 113. The FAC names as defendants the corporations that own three restaurants—the Flushing, Midtown, and Chinatown locations—as well as individual defendants which include alleged owners and managers at the Chinatown location.

Defendants move for judgment on the claims against the Chinatown Defendants: Shanghai Duplicate Corp., Lillian Liou, Cheng Kueng Liu, Yun Cai, John Zhang, and Terry Ho. They argue that, accepting the allegations of the FAC as true and construing them in favor of Plaintiffs, they still fail to state a claim that any of the Chinatown Defendants was an employer of any Plaintiff under FLSA and NYLL. See Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss First Amended Complaint, Dkt. No. 77 ("Def. Br.") 8–10. The thrust of Defen...