The Ninth Circuit Having Spoken, Trial Judge Awards Token.
In an April 26, 2009 post, we reported that class representative incentive agreements that created conflicting interests required new consideration of fee awards to objectors and class counsel. The case was Rodriguez v. West Publishing, Case Nos. 07-56643 et al. (9th Cir. Apr. 23, 2009) (for publication), involving the $49 million class action settlement between BAR/BRI class members and West Publishing/Kaplan Inc. The trial judge was the Hon. Manny Real.
In a July 22, 2009 on-line article appearing on law.com, Amanda Bronstad reports for The National Law Journal under the headline, “Federal Judge Grants Attorney Fees in BAR/BRI Case but Slashes Amount.”
Do the math: Judge Real awarded $8,125 to one attorney, and $16,250 to the other attorney. According to Ms. Bronstad’s article, the first attorney had requested $42,655 in fees, and $884 in costs. The second attorney had requested $108,000 in fees.
Thus, the objectors’ attorneys reaffirmed the principle that incentive awards should not be structured in a way that creates a conflict of interest between the class members and the incentive award plaintiffs. The reversal of the incentive awards led to savings for the class as a whole. The objectors’ attorneys received fee awards in recognition of their contribution, but a tad less (actually, more than a tad less) than they had requested. So everyone must be delighted with the outcome, right? Right?