Birdman just scored a huge battle in court.
According to court documents obtained by The Blast, a judge has granted a motion by Birdman to vacate a $1 million default judgment entered against him.
Back in 2018, Birdman, Cash Money Records and Pine View Management LLC were sued for unpaid wages by former employee, Nicolas Jose Penzo. Birdman failed to respond to the lawsuit for several months and a Florida judge ordered him to pay Penzo $1,069,876.
In the lawsuit, Penzo claimed that he worked as Birdman’s property manager from 2015 until 2017. He said he painted, handled the cleaning services, and coordinated with contractors to fix things like the electricity. Penzo claims that Birdman was supposed to pay him $150 a day. He says he would sometimes work from 9 am to 9 pm and worked an average of 48-60 hours a week without being properly paid for overtime. Penzo says he was only paid every two or three months, mostly with cash.
Penzo originally sued Birdman for $8,900 in unpaid wages along with an extra $15,000 to cover the missed daily payments. Birdman never showed up in court, despite being served with the legal papers.
Penzo went back to court to receive a default payment. He told the judge that he believed he was now owed a total of $1,069,876. He wrote to the judge, “The Defendant gave me several checks which were returned from his bank for insufficient funds and currently owes me $30,000 in unpaid wages, not including overtime.”
He continued, “I have suffered back pain due to the immense amount of work the Defendant required me to do. I was without work for approximately one year, suffered financially, physically, and emotionally because of the position the Defendant left me in, and therefore feel I am entitled to $1,000,000 in compensatory damages.”
In November 2018, Birdman finally showed up to court and argued that he was not properly served. The judge agreed and vacated the $1 million judgement. Birdman will now have to answer to the original lawsuit.