No Way, Said Appellate Court in Affirming Decision Interpreting Scope of Class Action Settlement. Here is a post on a case demonstrating that the trial court is the ultimate gatekeeper as far as determining that a class action settlement is fair, including the attorney’s fees award under a settlement. In In re […]
Ninth Circuit So Rules In Recent Decision. In Glasser v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., Case No. 09-56618 (9th Cir. May 17, 2011) (for publication), VW settled with plaintiff in a class action after it consented to new disclosures relating to its smart-key replacement technology (but paid no money to the class), agreeing nevertheless
Setting Fees Under Wage/Hour Statutes Different From Collectibility of Fees, Remand to Award Fees Under Common Fund Doctrine With Directions. Barboza v. West Coast Digital GSM, Inc., Case No. B227692 (2d Dist., Div. 4 Mar. 24, 2011) (unpublished) has a tortured history, with this being the fourth appeal–with many of the past ones
Requested 2.0 Multiplier Scaled Back to 1.4. Just to show you how class action fee awards can often be larger than the damages awards in protracted, contentious cases, we now digest Alcoser v. Thomas, Case Nos. A124848 et al. (1st Dist., Div. 1 Feb. 16, 2011) (unpublished). There, a tenant successfully won
Concurrent Negotiation of Substantive Relief and Fees in Public Agency Cases Is Allowable. Adam W. Hofmann, an attorney in the San Francisco office of Hanson Bridgett, has written an article entitled “Negotiating Attorneys Fees” in the January 2011 edition of The California Lawyer. In it, he explains that California cases expressly reject any
Here is the second installment of our top 20 decisions. 10. Jankey v. Lee, 181 Cal.App.4th 1173 (1st Dist., Div. 4 2010), review granted, No. S180890 (May 12, 2010) — authored by Presiding Justice Ruvolo; discussed in our Feb. 6, 2010 post. Attorney’s fees are awardable to a prevailing defendant under Civil
Court Rules in 5 –2 Decision that 1975 Statutory Reforms to Class Actions in NY Allow Fees Only to Class Representative. This next one is a bit off our beat, since it involves NY law, but we think it will be of interest to class action attorneys. New York’s highest court has ruled, in
Declaratory Relief Action Denial Reversed re Class Action Fee Distribution. In Carder v. Patten, Faith & Sandford, Case No. B221940 (2d Dist., Div. 5 Oct. 12, 2010) (certified for publication), the appellate court reversed judgment entered against a plaintiff class action lawyer in a declaratory relief action he brought against other class action co-counsel
U.S. District Judge Real Awards this Amount for Over 3 Years of Work. If you have read our “In the News” category (which you can search at our home page by using the search function on the left hand side), you know we have reported on McGuireWoods efforts to recover legal fees as
Appellate Division Held Objector Not Entitled to Fees. Though we do not venture out of California often, we do report on an interesting case that was just argued in the class action area in front of the New York Court of Appeals (which, for those of you unfamiliar with the New York system,
