Mealey's Attorney Fees : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Attorney Fees

July 17, 2024
Rehearing Granted In GoDaddy TCPA Suit, Class Settlement Opinion Clarified

ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on July 16 granted a petition for panel rehearing filed after a May opinion vacated a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class settlement with GoDaddy.com LLC and issued an opinion substituting its previous opinion with one that was “the same as our previous except that we clarify that the opinion of this Court is delivered solely in Section III.C.iii, in which” the entire panel joined; the class’ rehearing petition sought clarification for “the basis of” the May decision, arguing that the opinion titled “Opinion of the Court” was not actually that.
July 16, 2024
La. High Court: $22M For Attorneys Must Be Reconsidered After Class Damages Cut

NEW ORLEANS — A more than $22 million attorney fee award upheld by a Louisiana trial court and appellate panel due to res judicata after the damages award for a class of landowners suing over water levels was reduced from more than $42 million to $4.6 million must be reconsidered, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled, remanding to the trial court “for a hearing to determine a reasonable attorney fee.”
July 16, 2024
English Panel Affirms Attorney Fees To Nigeria After Set-Aside Of $11B Award

LONDON — An English appellate panel granted an Irish-owned company’s application for permission to appeal an attorney fees award against it worth roughly 43 million British pounds sterling, which it was ordered to pay the Federal Republic of Nigeria for its costs incurred in obtaining the set-aside of an arbitral award worth more than $11 billion, but dismissed the company’s arguments that the fees should have been awarded in Nigerian currency.
July 12, 2024
Amazon’s $7.2M Global Security Screening Pay Settlement Approved

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A federal judge in Kentucky granted final approval of a more than $4.3 million settlement to be paid by Amazon.com Inc. and related parties to end the second of two class complaints accusing the online retailer of failing to pay workers at its Pennsylvania warehouses for time spent undergoing mandatory security screenings; this amount brings the total global settlement to end the two cases to $7,205,837.
July 12, 2024
Chicken Purchasers’ Final Settlement OK’d; Attorney Fees Cut In End Users’ Pact

CHICAGO — In a pair of rulings in an antitrust case accusing broiler sellers of fixing the prices for chicken, a federal judge in Illinois granted final approval to a settlement between direct-purchaser plaintiffs (DPPs) and six prevailing defendants eliminating the DPPs from having to pay litigation costs and approved a reduction of attorney fees for the end-user consumer plaintiffs (EUCPs) after the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated and remanded an earlier award of one-third the settlement or $57.4 million.
July 12, 2024
Judge OKs $2M Class Settlement In ERISA Row But Denies Incentive Award Requests

COLUMBUS, Ga. — Approving a $2 million class settlement in a case involving the investment decisions and administrative costs of a terminated retirement plan, a Georgia federal judge granted attorney fees and expenses as requested but cited Johnson v. NPAS Sols., LLC in denying requests for $5,000 and $10,000 incentive awards.
July 11, 2024
3rd Circuit Reverses Attorney Fees Against Nike In ‘Cool Compression’ Mark Row

PHILADELPHIA — A panel of judges in the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 10 upheld findings that Nike Inc. willfully infringed upon a much smaller clothing brand’s “Cool Compression” trademark but held that a Pennsylvania federal judge assigned too much weight to the “David and Goliath” nature of the case when determining attorney fees.
July 10, 2024
Class Counsel Get 25% Of $1M Settlement In ERISA Record-Keeping Fees Case

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Granting final approval to a $1 million class settlement with Yale-New Haven Hospital Inc. and related entities to resolve allegations of imprudent record-keeping and administrative (RK&A) retirement plan fees, a Connecticut federal judge awarded class counsel $250,000 of that amount for attorney fees and expenses.
July 10, 2024
$5M Class Settlement Wraps ERISA Suit Over Health System Retirement Plans

DETROIT — Granting final approval to a $5 million class settlement in a suit challenging numerous aspects of the management of two Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) retirement plans, a Michigan federal judge awarded a third of that amount as attorney fees and $7,500 to each of the four named plaintiffs as an incentive.
July 09, 2024
Neb. High Court Upholds Waiting Time Penalty, Attorney Fees In Workers’ Comp Case

LINCOLN, Neb. — A Whole Foods Market Inc. employee who was injured when she fell while working was properly awarded attorney fees and a waiting time penalty after the employer refused to pay permanent partial disability (PPD) benefits even though the worker was actually entitled to temporary total disability (TTD) benefits as the employer was aware there “some form of disability as a result of a work accident,” the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled, upholding a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Court.
July 09, 2024
9th Circuit Denies Bids For Attorney Fees, Reassignment On Remand In ERISA Row

SAN FRANCISCO — In a July 8 order without explanation, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel that partly overturned dismissal of an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case over benefit statements denied pension plan participants’ opposed motions to reassign the case on remand and for $179,925 in attorney fees for the appeal.
July 09, 2024
Appliance Store In Trademark Fight Says 5th Circuit Wrongly Reversed Fees

NEW ORLEANS — An appliance store that the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held had its trademark on “Appliance Liquidation Outlet” infringed filed a petition for panel rehearing on a narrow aspect of the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, arguing that the panel majority was incorrect to reverse the award of attorney fees in the store’s favor.
July 08, 2024
Federal Magistrate Judge Recommends Reduced Attorney Fees In CoolSculpting Case

ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal magistrate judge in Florida recommended that attorney fees for counsel who successfully defended a company in a design defect case be reduced from the counsel’s request after finding “that employing 15 attorneys and four paralegals for this matter, and requesting over $1 million in fees for a 13-month period, to be excessive on its face.”
July 03, 2024
U.S. Supports Va. Official’s Position In Preliminary Injunction Attorney Fee Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A preliminary injunction “does not confer prevailing party status,” the United States argues in an amicus curiae brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the position of the commissioner of the Viriginia Department of Motor Vehicles, who is challenging a ruling by a divided Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that Virginians who filed a putative class complaint over a now repealed statute regarding the suspension of driver’s licenses were the prevailing parties.
June 27, 2024
Federal Circuit: Patent Defendant Not Entitled To Fees After Voluntary Dismissal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A company that produces contactless data carrying technology that is used in federal identification documents is not entitled to attorney fees in a patent infringement case because the claims against it were voluntarily dismissed after the plaintiff removed the claims from its amended complaint, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found in affirming a judgment from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on June 26.
June 27, 2024
Motley Rice, 4 Other Firms Appeal Opioid MDL Attorney Fees Recommendations

CLEVELAND — Five law firms filed separate notices of appeal in the opioid multidistrict litigation centralized in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio over final recommendations made by a fee panel to allocate $2.13 billion in attorney fees in connection with various settlements reached by the parties.
June 26, 2024
$7.25 Million Settlement Of Lincare Data Breach Receives Final Approval

TAMPA, Fla. — Two years after Lincare Holdings Inc. was first hit with class claims over a data breach that it experienced in 2021, a Florida federal magistrate judge granted final approval to a settlement with a group of the company’s patients that will provide $7.25 million to cover class members’ claims, attorney fees and other costs and relief.
June 25, 2024
9th Circuit Affirms $268K Sanction Against Saudi Heirs’ Lawyer For Fake Article

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel granted a motion for summary affirmance filed by Chevron Corp. and Chevron U.S.A. (collectively, Chevron) and affirmed a $268,000 sanction against an attorney for the heirs of a Saudi sheikh for filing a fake news article during an appeal over an $18 billion award.
June 25, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Review $2.67B Health Insurance Antitrust Settlement

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 denied two petitions by objectors who separately challenged the release of future claims and reasonableness of the attorney fee award in a $2.67 billion health insurance settlement.
June 25, 2024
Va. Official Tells High Court Attorney Fees Not Owed For Preliminary Injunction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The plain text of 42 U.S. Code Section 1988(b) does not allow for attorney fees to be awarded only for a preliminary injunction as it does not provide the ruling on the merits or final judgment necessary to prevail, the commissioner of the Viriginia Department of Motor Vehicles argues in his U.S. Supreme Court petitioner brief, challenging a ruling by a divided Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the Virginians who filed a putative class complaint over a now repealed statute regarding the suspension of driver’s licenses were the prevailing parties.
June 25, 2024
Petitioners Urge U.S. High Court To Review Split 9th Circuit EAJA Fee Denial

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The government has been granted more time to respond to a certiorari petition in which an engineering firm and the individuals who owned it before an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) deal that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) unsuccessfully challenged argue that denial of their Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) request for attorney fees and nontaxable costs “deepens confusion among the lower courts and creates a circuit split on a matter of great practical importance.”
June 24, 2024
5th Circuit: Store Infringed ‘Appliance Liquidation Outlet’ Mark, But No Fees Owed

NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 21 partly reversed a Texas federal judge’s finding in a trademark infringement case, finding that the judge correctly held that a company’s trademark on “Appliance Liquidation Outlet” was infringed but incorrectly held that “Appliance Liquidation” is a valid mark in a dispute between competing stores.
June 24, 2024
Attorney Fees In ERISA Class Settlement Are Cut To 30% Of $6.1M Common Fund

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Granting final approval of a $6.1 million class settlement over alleged mismanagement of a retirement plan, an Alabama federal judge awarded attorney fees of $1.83 million rather than the requested $2,033,333.13.
June 24, 2024
Class Counsel Get A Third Of $6M Settlement In Case Over Bank’s Former ESOP

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Granting final approval of a $6 million settlement in an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) case that the plaintiff estimated will give dozens of class members awards averaging more than $30,000, a Virginia federal judge approved paying from that total $2 million for attorney fees plus $104,186.34 for litigation costs.
June 21, 2024
Jackson Walker Says Trustee’s Request To Return Fees Not Supported By Law

HOUSTON — The U.S. trustee’s bid to have a Texas law firm return more than $400,000 in fees it was awarded for work on mediation in the asbestos bankruptcy case of Hess Corp. affiliate HONX Inc. due to a romantic relationship between one of its attorneys and the bankruptcy judge who acted as mediator should be rejected because it “it inequitably and improperly targets” the law firm, which did nothing wrong, the firm says in a response brief in a federal bankruptcy court.