Redwood City Assessed About $260,000 Under Private Attorney General Statute.
Redwood City lost a CEQA challenge by local attorney Joe Carcione (son of Joe Carcione, the Green Grocer) who sued arguing that the EIR
was inadequate for the “Downtown Precise Plan,” a plan with a vision for up to 2,500 new high-rise housing units in a pedestrian-friendly shopping district of the City. Specifically, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Marie Weiner ruled that (1) the EIR failed to have a “shadow study,” i.e. examining whether allowing buildings up to 12 stories high could cause shadowing on shorter downtown buildings (including Mr. Carcione’s law offices); and (2) the City inadequately studied how historic buildings in downtown Redwood City might be impacted by a development swell.
Mr. Carcione apparently moved for attorney’s fees under California’s private attorney general statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5, asking for reimbursement of his full $350,000 in legal fees. On May 28, 2009, Judge Weiner awarded Mr. Carcione $260,000 in fees, apportioning out the fees for the “shadow study” issue (because his law offices had a personal stake in the issue) and awarding full fees for the historic resources issue (because he had no personal stake in defending this issue).
Redwood City had paid an outside attorney about $107,000 over three years to defend it in the Carcione suit. It has been projected that redoing the plans for the project with the help of outside consultants may cost roughly $250,000. Adding all these expenses (plus the fees award to Mr. Carcione), the Downtown Precise Plan will cost more than $600,000 just for litigation-oriented fees and redo costs.
For more information on this situation, see Shaun Bishop’s story, “Redwood City’s tab for defending flawed downtown plan grows,” which was posted on June 4, 2009 at the San Jose Mercury News website.
Library of Congress photograph. The Courthouse, Redwood City.
E*TRADE Financial Will Seek Large Fees After Winning Over $18 Million In Contractual Breach/Interest Damages.
Following a three-week bench trial before United States District Judge Robert Sweet of the Southern District of New York federal court, E*TRADE Financial Corporation was awarded over $18 million in contractual breach damages and prejudgment interest in a four-year lawsuit against Deutsche Bank AG.
Importantly, the district judge ordered Deutsche Bank to pay E*TRADE attorney’s fees in an amount to be determined in a postjudgment proceeding.
We will keep you apprised on the fee proceeding in this case—although it is likely to be large.
Bluetooth Headset Proposed Class Action Settlement Draws Lots Of Objections When Class Attorneys Seek Over $800,000 Even Though Class Members (Other than Representatives) Receive No Payout.
In In re Bluetooth Headset Products Liability Litigation, Case No. 2:07-ML-01822-DSF-E (C.D. Cal., assigned to U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer), seven law firms represented plaintiffs in a putative class action over economic losses purportedly caused by inadequate warnings of the need for volume control in Bluetooth headsets.
The law firms, on behalf of the class, seek to obtain final approval to a proposed, pre-certification settlement in which nothing will be paid to the absent class members, $800,000 will be paid to the class attorneys, $100,000 paid to charities that are neither class members nor have suffered any injuries, and $12,000 will be paid to the representative plaintiffs. Also, class members retain the right to pursue claims for physical injury and the right to seek future injunctive relief, with defendants apparently making their use warnings more definite in nature.
This proposed settlement has drawn a firestorm of protests from many, many objectors. Based on several cases from different federal appellate courts, objectors have argued that the proposed settlement is essentially “self dealing”—either a “sellout” of the attorneys’ and class representatives’ fiduciary duties to the class or a mertiless lawsuit brought to only obtain leverage for the representatives’ benefit. See, e.g., Murray v. GMAC, 434 F.3d 948, 952 (7th Cir. 2006); Mirfasihi v. Fleet Mortgage Corp., 356 F.3d 781, 785 (7th Cir. 2004); Crawford v. Equifax Payment Services, Inc., 201 F.3d 877 (7th Cir. 2000); Molski v. Gleich, 318 F.3d 937, 953 (9th Cir. 2003).
The fairness hearing on the proposed settlement and objections is slated for July 6, 2009.
If you would like to see a representative objection, see Ted Frank’s objection referenced in a post of his at overlawyered.com. Mr. Frank is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a frequent contributor to overlawyered.com.