Underpaid waitress wins appeal to claim double damages, $112,000 attorney fees
By Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel Feb. 8, 2013 8:15 a.m.
Here's another expensive example of why bosses shouldn't date employees, and vice versa.
Shawn Johnson started working as a waitress at Roma's (with restaurants in East Troy and Waterford) in 2003. At some point she began a relationship with owner Mark Galluzzo and became a manager, but by 2006 she had quit and filed a complaint with the state seeking $9,500 in unpaid wages.
That action morphed into seven years of litigation, two trials, and two trips to the state Court of Appeals. The court on Thursday reversed a dead Racine County judge's decision to deny Johnson her full attorney fees and double damages after she prevailed at a 2010 trail.
The late Dennis Barry's reasoning? The case was over-litigated because of the parties' emotions, borne of their past romance.
The appeals court found that while emotion-based over-litigation might be a reason to reduce fees, Barry failed to make an adequate record of that reasoning -- especially in light of the fact Johnson's fees claim "was a model of thorough documentation."
Johnson is represented by Sally Piefer of the Schroeder Law Group in Waukesha.
A jury in 2010 awarded Johnson $3,648. She then claimed she was entitled to double that amount, under state and federal wage laws, and sought $112,000 in attorney fees. But Barry denied the penalties and approved just $10,000 in fees.
Now all those decisions will be revisited by a new Racine County circuit judge.
While determining attorney fees is within the trial court's discretion, "A reasonable exercise of discretion requires that the court use 'a logical rationale based on the appropriate legal principles and facts of record.'" the appeals court found.
Meanwhile, Galluzzo's business filed Chapter 11 just a few weeks after the verdict. The petition was later dismissed.
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