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June 09, 2026
LOS ANGELES — After more than a decade of litigation, a California state court judge granted final approval to a statewide class action settlement resolving claims that Tinder Inc., which owns and operates a popular dating app, violated California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and unfair competition law (UCL) by overcharging older users of its app for premium services, for which Tinder agreed to pay $60.5 million including more than $20.1 million in attorney fees.
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June 09, 2026
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Declining to disturb an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) fiduciary’s decisions regarding disbursement of almost $16 million in proceeds from two confidential settlements that were made without court action, a Wisconsin federal judge ruled that the remaining defendants in a long-running Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit “have not established that the court has the authority or duty to require” the “additional due process and fairness protections” requested regarding the settlement funds.
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June 09, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that a lower court largely acted within its discretion in awarding attorney fees in a class action brought by customers of Fifth Third Bank against the bank after the customers were granted summary judgment on their Truth in Lending Act (TILA) claim and a jury found in favor of the bank on the customers’ breach of contract claim, but the panel found that different forum rates should have been applied to two of the class’ firms.
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June 08, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge awarded class counsel $2.2 million in attorney fees plus more than $23,000 in expenses after previously granting final approval to an $8.9 million settlement of the plaintiffs’ class action against the manufacturer of a soda product for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by deceptively labeling its soda as “Prebiotic” and “gut healthy,” awarding slightly less in attorney fees than was sought and reducing the named plaintiffs’ service awards.
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June 04, 2026
OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted final approval to an $85 million settlement in a class action brought by investors against Wells Fargo & Company and certain of its executives alleging that news of the company’s practice of using fake interviews to give the impression of complying with internal diversity hiring practices led to a drop in the company’s stock value.
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June 03, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — While a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in a June 2 opinion that it agreed with a Nebraska federal judge’s finding that patents describing the sharing of farming data were directed at patent-ineligible abstract concepts, the panel also held that the judge failed to adequately explain why the case was not exceptional for the purpose of attorney fees under the Patent Act.
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June 03, 2026
CHICAGO — More than four years after an attorney fees motion was filed in an antitrust case accusing broiler sellers of fixing the prices for chicken and following two appeals to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a federal judge in Illinois awarded the end user consumer plaintiff (EUCP) class attorney fees of 26.6% of the net common fund resulting from settlements with sellers and awarded money to the two settlement objectors.
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June 02, 2026
HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii issued an opinion and order granting final approval of a $100 million derivative settlement in a case brought by investors on behalf of Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. stemming from the August 2023 wildfires that broke out on Maui.
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June 02, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an award of attorney fees based on an oral agreement between attorneys who worked on a case for five years and an attorney they brought onto the litigation team shortly before an anticipated trial, finding that the longer-standing attorneys’ account of the oral agreement was “coherent,” “plausible” and “consistent with how every other late-added attorney was paid.”
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June 02, 2026
PHOENIX — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel awarded an Italian wine company all of its attorney fees incurred defending against a “frivolous” appeal brought by an American distributor challenging the confirmation of an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) award against it in a trademark dispute, and ordered further proceedings to determine the amount of fees owed.
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June 02, 2026
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A North Carolina federal judge granted a motion to approve payment of attorney fees of $212,000.59 to legal counsel for former insurance mogul Greg Lindberg, who was sentenced to a 12-year prison term in a money laundering conspiracy case related to his $2 billion scheme to defraud insurers and policyholders and for his conviction on retrial in a separate case for bribing the North Carolina insurance commissioner.
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June 01, 2026
NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the confirmation of a JAMS arbitral award worth more than $9 million in attorney fees and costs issued against an investor for allegedly violating a restriction on securities transfers and rebuffed his arguments that the award should not have been confirmed based on findings from parallel litigation in Pakistan, which the panel said was only “tangentially related.”
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June 01, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California granted final approval to a $250 million settlement in a class action brought by investors alleging that an electric car manufacturer and certain of its executives hid the fact that they knew that the company would be selling its vehicles at a significant loss ahead of its initial public offering.
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May 29, 2026
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida federal judge denied a motion filed by the maker of Fume-brand vapes for attorney fees incurred litigating putative class claims against it for violation of Florida’s consumer protection statute and unjust enrichment by allegedly misleadingly marketing its vape products, which the defendant said were “repetitive” because the plaintiffs “repackaged” the claim after dismissal and moved for reconsideration.
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May 29, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge on May 28 entered final judgment in favor of a certified class of consumers of Cake-brand vape products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) against two nonappearing companies for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by mislabeling the THC content of their vapes. The judge ordered the companies to correct their labels and awarded class counsel approximately $850,000 in attorney fees and costs.
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May 29, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Supreme Court issued an opinion holding that the American Rule doesn’t bar recovery of attorney fees that certain descendants incurred in prior litigation to enforce settlements between themselves and other descendants as breach-of-contract damages, as long as the breach was not the basis for the prior litigation.
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May 28, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A payday lender will pay $5.2 million and for two years refrain from assessing transfer fees on direct transfers of advances to active-duty service members and eligible dependents to end class claims that it engaged in predatory lending practices in violation of the Military Lending Act (MLA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and the Georgia Payday Loan Act (GPLA), pursuant to a settlement agreement granted final approval by a federal judge in California.
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May 22, 2026
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Granting a disability insurer’s motion to enforce a confidential settlement agreement in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over termination of benefits, a Tennessee federal judge found that the claimant acted in bad faith and that the insurer is entitled to “reasonable attorney fees.”
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May 20, 2026
LINCOLN, Neb.— A federal judge in Nebraska approved a $4 million class action settlement arising from a 2024 data breach that compromised the private information of current and former patients of a healthcare advisory firm’s clients, holding that class certification is appropriate, the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate and the plaintiffs’ requested $1,333,333 in attorney fees and $2,500 service award for each class representative are both reasonable.
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May 20, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California issued an order granting final approval to a settlement to end shareholders’ derivative class action against Wells Fargo & Co. over allegedly discriminatory lending and hiring practices.
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May 19, 2026
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky federal judge who previously said that the plaintiff in a long-term disability (LTD) case appeared to be “eligible to receive a fee award because she has achieved some degree of success on the merits by virtue of the remand order” ultimately awarded her $450.37 in costs but denied her request for $20,921 in attorney fees; the judge also denied the plaintiff’s motion to reopen the case, saying that it “was filed prematurely.”
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May 18, 2026
MIAMI — A Florida appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s order that entered as its final judgment an arbitrator’s decision that an insured take nothing against an insurer in a breach of contract lawsuit over wind damage, agreeing with the lower court that the insured failed to attach the essential notice of rejection to its motion for trial de novo.
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May 15, 2026
ST. LOUIS — Finding no abuse of discretion, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed imposition of a $38,507.44 sanction and denial of a motion to depose a law firm, noting that the trial court determined that the motion constituted a willful violation of an order that said no additional discovery regarding the finances of a third-party defendant would “‘be permitted absent new evidence of fraudulent or voidable transactions.’”
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May 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s decision to award a company certain attorney fees it incurred defending itself against patent infringement claims, finding that the lower court was right to find the case “exceptional.”
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May 14, 2026
FRESNO, Calif. — The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) will pay $303 million to end wage-fixing claims by current and former “volunteer” college coaches after final class settlement approval was granted by a federal judge in California who noted that class counsel reported that the settlement amount is more than 100% of the alleged damages.