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Mealey's Attorney Fees

  • December 23, 2025

    Court Confirms $765K Attorney Fees Award Against Chinese Law Firm’s Client

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge on Dec. 22 granted a Chinese law firm’s petition to confirm a Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA) award worth more than $765,000 in unpaid attorney fees against the firm’s former client, who is now residing in Washington state.

  • December 23, 2025

    Walmart Wins $623K Attorney Fee Sanction Against Plaintiff In Avocado Oil Case

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge awarded Walmart Inc. more than $623,000 in attorney fees against two attorneys as sanction for bringing a frivolous class action based on the plaintiff’s alleged in-store purchase of Walmart avocado oil, which after multiple rulings including a grant of class certification was revealed to have been made online and therefore was subject to a binding arbitration agreement.

  • December 23, 2025

    Delaware Supreme Court Finds Rescission Of Musk’s Tesla $56B Pay Package Improper

    DOVER, Del. — The Supreme Court of Delaware, sitting en banc¸ reversed a lower court’s rescission of Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package in a shareholder’s derivative suit, finding that rescission was an improper remedy because Musk couldn’t be restored to the status quo ante.

  • December 19, 2025

    $8M ESOP Settlement That Followed Effective Vindication Ruling Wins Final OK

    WILMINGTON, Del. — One of the first Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases in which a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applied the “effective vindication” doctrine in declining to compel individual arbitration has been resolved by an $8 million class settlement that the plaintiff said will yield average net distributions of more than $8,500 per class member; the suit filed in a Delaware federal court challenged a 2016 employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) transaction.

  • December 19, 2025

    Split Louisiana Supreme Court Denies Attorney Fee Challenge In Defamation Case

    NEW ORLEANS — A divided Louisiana Supreme Court denied an attorney’s application for writ of certiorari filed after she was ordered to pay additional attorney fees to a former client and his new attorney when she was unsuccessful in appealing a ruling against her in her defamation suit; the dissenting high court justices opined that the application should have been granted to consider additional attorney fees for the client.

  • December 19, 2025

    5th Circuit Reverses Fee Award Because NFL Disability Claimant Didn’t Succeed

    NEW ORLEANS — Concluding that favorable factual findings are “a moral victory . . . insufficient to justify an award of attorney’s fees” and that the claimant here ultimately obtained no legal relief, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 18 reversed an award of more than $1.25 million to a former National Football League player who sued for a higher level of disability benefits than he was awarded, prevailed after a bench trial and then saw that favorable ruling reversed in a previous appeal.

  • December 18, 2025

    Class Counsel Seeks 5% Attorney Fee Award In ACA Class Action

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Class counsel filed a reply brief in further support of their request for an attorney fee award of 5% of settlement classes’ net in a risk-corridor payment class action under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), arguing that the fee would not result in an “unjustified windfall.”

  • December 17, 2025

    Supreme Court Won’t Consider Plaintiffs’ Sanctions In Tape Patent Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied an inventor and his company’s petition for a writ of certiorari and will not consider whether the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in affirming an Ohio federal judge’s entry of sanctions against the petitioners.

  • December 17, 2025

    Vermont Supreme Court Affirms Attorney Fee Award In Abusive Litigation Suit

    MONTPELIER, Vt. — A trial court was not obligated to take into account a man’s financial circumstances in awarding his ex-wife attorney fees against him for engaging in abusive litigation against her following their divorce as the fees were awarded pursuant to a Vermont statute governing abusive litigation and not as “suit money” in the divorce proceeding, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled, affirming the trial court’s fee award.

  • December 16, 2025

    Panel Affirms Discovery Sanctions, Attorney Fees Award In Divorce Proceeding

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — A trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting a California woman’s motions for sanctions and an award of need-based attorney fees against her ex-husband, a California appellate panel ruled, finding that his repeated failure to comply with discovery requests and orders, as well as a disparity in the divorced couple’s respective financial situations, made the awards “fair, reasonable and appropriate.”

  • December 16, 2025

    Indiana Panel Affirms $31K Attorney Fee, Contempt Order In Dissolution Dispute

    INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana appellate court affirmed a lower court order requiring a husband to pay $31,000 in attorney fees and finding him in contempt of a settlement agreement related to a marriage dissolution petition, finding that because the lower court determined that the husband violated certain portions of the settlement agreement, the appellate court “cannot say” the lower court abused its discretion.

  • December 16, 2025

    Maine Supreme Court Holds Landlord Owes Attorney Fees, As Well As $6,000 Judgment

    BANGOR, Maine — A $6,000 cap on small claims court judgments does not apply to a separate award of attorney fees and litigation costs, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled, affirming two lower court judgments against a landlord who was found liable for withholding former tenants’ security deposit.

  • December 15, 2025

    Class Members Get Up To $75,000 Apiece In Final Proton Beam Settlement

    BOSTON — A Massachusetts federal judge on Dec. 12 gave final approval to a claims-made class settlement over proton beam therapy (PBT or PBRT) that is capped at $6.75 million but at last report would result in distributions of less than $1.65 million because just 22 claims were submitted; in a different order issued the same day, the judge granted a separate $2 million for class counsel.

  • December 15, 2025

    $45K Attorney Fee Sanction Against Pro Se Litigant In Home Sale Case Affirmed

    PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania appellate court affirmed an order requiring a pro se litigant to pay more than $45,000 in attorney fees after she brought vexatious litigation against a couple who purchased the litigant’s late mother’s former home, writing that the litigant repeatedly brought frivolous actions raising issues that had already been resolved by the court.

  • December 15, 2025

    Attorney Fee Petition Granted, Remanded In Light Of Recent Prevailing Party Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 15 granted a farmer’s petition for a writ of certiorari concerning attorney fees that was not opposed by the respondents, the secretary of  Agriculture and the Farm Service Agency administrator (together, USDA) and remanded the case to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for further consideration in light of a February prevailing party high court ruling.

  • December 15, 2025

    Dairy Cooperatives Will Pay $34.4M To End Grade A Milk Antitrust Class Claims

    LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Two dairy cooperatives will pay $34.4 million to end claims by dairy farmers that they conspired in violation of the Sherman Act to suppress pay for Grade A milk, according to a class settlement granted final approval by a federal judge in New Mexico.

  • December 12, 2025

    Split Tribunal Awards Chevron More Than $220M In Fees For Ecuador Fight

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A split Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) tribunal awarded Chevron Corp. and its subsidiary more than $220 million in attorney fees and expenses incurred opposing an Ecuadorian court’s “fraudulent” multibillion-dollar judgment for oil drilling in the rainforest, representing less than 25% of what Chevron sought, with a dissenting arbitrator saying Chevron deserved all the fees it incurred suing a U.S. lawyer who was involved in bribing an Ecuadorian judge.

  • December 12, 2025

    2nd Circuit: SSA FOIA Request Fee Refund Improper; Attorney Fees Wrongly Awarded

    NEW YORK — A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) was improperly found by a trial court to fall within the FOIA’s fee-preclusion provision and instead falls under the SSA’s cost-reimbursement provision, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing a trial court’s order that the FOIA requestor be refunded for the FOIA fees he was charged and vacating the award for attorney fees and costs as the requestor did not “substantially” prevail under the FOIA.

  • December 12, 2025

    VPPA Pixel Suit Settles For $900K With Reduced Attorney Fees, Service Award

    NEW YORK — A $900,000 settlement agreement that disposes of all claims under the Video Protection Privacy Act (VPPA) against the publisher of Scientific American (SA) received final approval from a New York federal judge, who found the agreement to be “fair, reasonable, and adequate” but reduced the requested attorney fees and service awards as based on inflated figures and disproportionate claims of involvement in the litigation.

  • December 11, 2025

    9th Circuit: Brewing Firm’s Untimely Breach Claims Defeat Attorney Fees Appeal

    SAN FRANCISCO — Because a brewing firm did not file breach of contract claims against a builder within the contractual statute of limitations, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that the plaintiff was not entitled to an award of attorney fees.

  • December 10, 2025

    Half The Requested Attorney Fees Awarded In LTD Case Remanded To Administrator

    SAN FRANCISCO — Finding that “the reversal of the determination of denial and the remand for consideration with a vocational analysis constitutes a sufficient degree of success to warrant attorney’s fees” in a case challenging termination of long-term disability (LTD) benefits under an any-occupation standard, a California federal magistrate judge awarded just half of the nearly $185,000 requested for attorney fees and declined to amend the judgment to award the benefits pending the determination on remand.

  • December 09, 2025

    2nd Circuit Affirms Discovery Stay, Fee Denial In Civil Forfeiture Case

    NEW YORK — Ruling against the appellant on all points except the one regarding which the U.S. government conceded that it had erred, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed that a five-month discovery stay in a civil forfeiture action did not constitute a violation of the appellant’s due process rights and that his request for attorney fees and costs under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA) was properly denied.

  • December 09, 2025

    Attorney’s Remedies Are Sufficient To Avoid AI Misuse Sanctions, Judge Says

    PORTLAND, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon declined to impose sanctions for misuse of artificial intelligence in a trademark case after an attorney took responsibility for hallucinated cites and the plaintiff and its attorneys waived associated attorney fees and said they would undertake efforts to educate about the proper uses of the technology in the legal profession.

  • December 08, 2025

    $14 Million Settlement Of Data Breach Suit Against Turnkey Payer Gets Final OK

    MIAMI — A Florida federal judge deemed the $14 million settlement of a consolidated class action over a turnkey payer service’s 2022 data breach to be “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” granting final approval and issuing final judgment to the plaintiffs.

  • December 05, 2025

    Settlement Between Microturbine Manufacturing Executives, Investors Approved

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California granted final approval to a $2.25 million settlement between investors and former executives of a microturbine manufacturer who the investors alleged defrauded investors by making false or misleading statements regarding the company’s revenue.