Attorney Author’s Commentary Posits Whether It Is A Poster Child for Class Action Abuse Or Just Unusual Circumstances.
As attorney Eric Troutman discussed in an article found in the August 26, 2026 edition of JD Supra, a New York district judge in Watson v. Manhattan Luxury Automobiles, 2026 WL 2267941 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 8, 2026) was dealing with a $710,000 class action settlement for a 418-member class where 376 participated and recovered about $270 each (a total of $104,500) in a TCPA case. Class counsel’s lodestar was $598,975, comprising two attorneys billing at $500 per hour for a total of $1,197.95 hours in a case vigorously litigated by the defense for several years and which was less than 3 weeks before trial. Class counsel asked for over $400,000 in fees, and it looks like the district judge awarded $415,000, or about 58.8% of the settlement pot.” However, the district court refused to allow class counsel to recover $25,000 for an earlier sanctions award based on an error in an expert report; after all, this was an attorney error for which the class should not be held accountable.
Mr. Troutman found the hourly rates and work effort to be reasonable, but he concluded by asking whether this case is an illustration of class action abuse or reflects an award for plaintiff attorneys having to fight an underfunded defendant for years to reach a resolution. Because this is a matter of opinion, we will let you readers be the judges of what this interesting result demonstrates.