Mayoral hopeful and supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis has to fork over nearly $3.9 million to the lawyers of workers who sued him for shortchanging them at his Gristedes stores, a Manhattan appeals court ruled yesterday.
The billionaire Republican candidate sought to slash the hefty legal bill on grounds that it exceeded the $3.5 million settlement he struck with his employees on the eve of trial in 2009.
But the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Manhattan federal Judge Paul Crotty, who last year ruled that the legal fees “were reasonably incurred” and blasted Catsimatidis for his “vigorous approach to litigating this case,” which dates to 2004.
Catsimatidis said he was “disappointed” with the ruling.
“Our lawyers charged us for 4,000 hours — they [the plaintiffs’ lawyers] charged for 14,000 hours,” he said.
“It tells me something smells, but the appeals court didn’t want to deal with it.”
Lead plaintiffs’ lawyer Justin Swartz said Catsimatidis “shouldn’t have dragged this out for so long.”
“He could have paid his workers nine years ago and avoided almost all of our legal fees,” Swartz added.
Catsimatidis, who has an estimated net worth of $3 billion, is still appealing a ruling that held him personally liable for his losses in the case.