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Mealey's Attorney Fees

  • 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.

  • December 04, 2025

    $7M Class Settlement Gets Final OK In ERISA Annuity Calculation Case

    PHOENIX — An Arizona federal judge on Dec. 3 granted final approval to a class settlement with a present value of $7 million that resolves a suit challenging the use of allegedly outdated mortality assumptions to calculate annuities for married pension plan participants; as requested, the judge also awarded a third of that total for attorney fees.

  • December 03, 2025

    Panel: Guaranty Association Not Required To Pay Attorney Fees In Settlement Dispute

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Florida appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court order enforcing a settlement agreement for $3,000 in attorney fees awarded to a water restoration company in an insurance coverage dispute with the Florida Insurance Guaranty Association (FIGA), finding that covered claims relate to losses under the policy but not attorney fees included in the settlement agreement with a now-insolvent homeowners insurer.

  • December 03, 2025

    $48.5M Deal That Followed ERISA Jury Verdict Wins Final OK, With Incentives

    NEW YORK — Granting three $25,000 case contribution awards over the defendants’ opposition, a New York federal judge on Dec. 2 gave final approval to a class settlement that was struck after a rare Employee Retirement Income Security Act jury trial in a challenge to the record-keeping and administration fees of a multiple employer retirement plan; the deal includes a $48.5 million payment that with interest now totals $49,539,537, and class counsel were awarded a third of that total for attorney fees as requested.

  • December 03, 2025

    Align Technology Settles Dental Aligner Antitrust Case For $31.75 Million

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted final approval of Align Technology Inc.’s renegotiated $31.75 million settlement ending antitrust claims by a class of those who purchased or paid for SmileDirectClub aligners and granted the requested attorney fees, expenses and $7,500 service awards for each of the three class representatives.

  • December 02, 2025

    In ‘First Impression’ FCA Medicare Suit, 1st Circuit Affirms Judgment For Lab

    BOSTON — The First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Dec. 1 affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment to a lab and its owners in a medical practice’s qui tam suit alleging violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) and similar state laws related to billing Medicare for alleged medically unnecessary urinary tract infection (UTI) testing, finding that the medical practice failed to show that the lab and its owners should have known the tests were not medically necessary.

  • December 01, 2025

    Judge: N.J. Hotel Must Pay Nearly $1.4 Million For Econo Lodge Infringement

    CAMDEN, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge granted summary judgment to the hotel company behind Econo Lodge, finding that the undisputed record showed that holdover franchisees continued to use trademarks related to the brand years after the termination of a franchise agreement, ordering the defendant entities to pay just short of $1.4 million in monetary damages, disgorgement and costs.

  • November 26, 2025

    Panel Denies Morgan & Morgan’s Attorney Fee Appeal In Ohio Train Derailment Case

    CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 25 affirmed a lower court’s ruling that denied law firm Morgan & Morgan’s challenge to the attorney fee award distribution in the settlement of litigation stemming from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, ruling that any harm the firm suffered was “a result of its own doing” because it advocated for a quick-pay provision in the settlement that allows plaintiffs’ counsel to be paid soon after the  settlement is approved, even while the settlement is still subject to appeal.

  • November 26, 2025

    ERISA Forfeiture Case That Survived Dismissal Settles For Nearly $2M

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A $1,995,000 class settlement won final approval on Nov. 25 in a case that had challenged the use of forfeited nonvested retirement plan contributions to offset the plan sponsor’s future matching contributions, with a California federal judge granting the requested $665,000 award for attorney fees and costs but directing that 10% of the fees be retained by the settlement administrator pending a determination “that the settlement distribution process has been completed.”

  • November 26, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Fees, Sanctions In ‘Frivolous’ Patent Infringement Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 25 affirmed a California federal judge’s decision to order more than $250,000 in attorney fees and additional sanctions against a company that sued Google LLC for allegedly infringing a patent on a system that allows musical artists to remotely update an album already on a user’s device.

  • November 25, 2025

    Court Finds No Error In Expert Testimony In Custody Dispute But Remands Over Fees

    BALTIMORE — A Maryland trial court properly allowed an expert to testify in a custody dispute on the need for supervised visitation with the mother, a state appellate court held, but the court remanded the case for a reconsideration of an attorney fee award to the children’s appointed lawyer.

  • November 21, 2025

    Class Members Will Recover Up To $48,000 Each In Proton Beam Settlement

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida federal judge granted final approval to a class settlement in which an insurer will pay up to $3,408,000 to resolve a suit challenging denials of coverage for proton beam therapy (PBT) that occurred over about nine years; the insurer will also separately pay $1,675,000 in fees and costs, a $15,000 individual general release payment and claim administration costs estimated at $12,000.

  • November 21, 2025

    No Attorney Fees To Sports Medicine Company Cleared Of Infringement

    TAMPA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida denied a plaintiff sports medicine company’s motion for attorney fees, holding that its trademark dispute with another sports medicine company was not “exceptional” as defined in the Lanham Act despite the judge’s earlier grant of summary judgment in the plaintiff’s favor that led to an order canceling the defendant entity’s federally registered trademark.

  • November 21, 2025

    Attorney Fees Award Vacated For Failure To Show How Award Was Calculated, Panel Says

    BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho trial court abused its discretion in awarding attorney fees to the prevailing party in a dispute over the use of an easement because the trial court failed to explain how it calculated the amount of attorney fees awarded to the prevailing party, the Idaho Court of Appeals said in vacating and remanding the trial court’s award of attorney fees.

  • November 20, 2025

    $6.4M Data Breach Settlement With Medical Equipment Vendor Given Final Approval

    INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana federal judge granted final approval and entered judgment in a data breach class action against a sleep apnea product supply company for a nonreversionary $6.38 million settlement that provides up to $2,000 per claimant and awards $1,699,212.44 in attorney fees, $39,897.57 in litigation expenses and $3,000 service awards to each of the 21 class representatives.

  • November 20, 2025

    Judge: Designer Not Barred From Seeking Statutory Damages, Fees In IP Case

    PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge held that a plaintiff designer is not barred from seeking damages and fees against a clothing company that contracted with another designer to use a pattern that allegedly infringed the plaintiff’s copyrighted design, finding that a four-year gap between the defendant designer’s alleged infringement and the clothing company’s use of the pattern on pajamas constituted separate acts of alleged infringement after a substantial cessation.

  • November 19, 2025

    Claimant Gets Judgment Exceeding $1M In LTD, Residual Disability Benefits Case

    ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Long-term disability (LTD) and residual disability insurers agreed to give up their right to appeal and pay a pediatric dermatologist more than $1 million in retroactive benefits, attorney fees and prejudgment interest under a stipulated final judgment that a Michigan federal judge approved.

  • November 18, 2025

    Federal Circuit Points To Weakness Of Claims In Affirming Patent Row Fees

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Tennessee federal judge’s decision to grant more than $100,000 in attorney fees to a small grocery chain, finding no abuse of discretion in the judge’s finding that a plaintiff security technology company had a pattern of bringing frivolous patent infringement claims.

  • November 18, 2025

    N.C. Judge Approves $2.45M Website Tracking Software Settlement With Health System

    RALEIGH, N.C.  — A North Carolina state court judge on Nov. 17 approved a class action settlement between patients and former patients of a hospital system and the hospital system in a suit asserting that software on the hospital’s website captured their information and sent it to Facebook without their consent, finding that the $2.45 million settlement “is fair, reasonable, adequate, and in the best interest of the settlement class.”

  • November 18, 2025

    Walmart Seeks $745K In Attorney Fees From Plaintiff’s Counsel In Avocado Oil Case

    LOS ANGELES — Walmart Inc. on Nov. 17 filed a brief in California federal court asserting that it is entitled to $745,422.75 in attorney fees from two attorneys who represented a plaintiff in a putative class action against Walmart for violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by deceptively marketing avocado oil, and against whom the court ordered sanctions after finding that they acted “recklessly” and in “subjective bad faith” by bringing a frivolous lawsuit.

  • November 17, 2025

    Deponent Ordered To Pay More Than $60,000 For Fees, Costs In Health Plan Case

    CHICAGO — An Illinois federal magistrate judge who previously determined that a deponent’s “obstructive and combative behavior and dilatory tactics” warranted three extra hours of deposition and monetary sanctions awarded more than half of the $105,875.20 requested for related attorney fees in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action that challenges the expenses and allocations by trustees of a nationwide multiemployer health plan.

  • November 14, 2025

    2nd Circuit: Vt. Law Misapplied When Attorney Fees Reduced In Termination Suit

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in Vermont properly reduced attorney fees for an employee’s counsel in a wrongful termination case after determining that the counsel’s billing was unreasonable; however, the judge’s additional reduction based on the worker’s degree of success was incorrect as it was based on the disproportionality of the requested amount to the monetary relief for the worker, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, vacating the attorney fee award and remanding for recalculation.

  • November 12, 2025

    Magistrate Recommends Confirming Award Including $118K In Attorney Fees

    MIAMI — A Florida federal magistrate judge recommended confirming an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) award in which a tribunal resolved a Venezuelan airline shareholder dispute and ordered the respondent to pay more than $118,000 in attorney fees for “‘reproachable’” conduct.  The magistrate did not recommend awarding more attorney fees after finding that the respondents’ litigation tactics were valid and that any conduct issues were already penalized by the tribunal.

  • November 12, 2025

    Iowa Supreme Court Finds Application For Attorney Fees Timely, Affirms Award

    DES MOINES, Iowa — There is nothing under Iowa law that “establishes a specific procedure or deadline to claim statutory attorney fees,” the Iowa Supreme Court held, affirming an award of attorney fees in a quiet-title dispute despite the application being filed after the deadline to appeal the decision had lapsed.

  • November 11, 2025

    Parkland Shooting 1 Occurrence Under Excess Policy, 11th Circuit Affirms

    ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Nov. 10 affirmed a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of an insured in its lawsuit seeking coverage for underlying negligence suits arising from a 2018 shooting spree at a Parkland, Fla., high school, finding that the term “occurrence” is ambiguous and must be construed in favor of the insured and the lower court correctly determined that shooting was one occurrence under the policy.