Law360 covers HLLI’s victory in the Pearson appeal.
Three men who made side deals to end their opposition to a class settlement were “falsely flying the class’ colors” to extract money from its deal and should be ordered to return their ill-gotten funds, the Seventh Circuit said Thursday.
A lower court incorrectly found that it didn’t have the power to order class objectors Randy Nunez, Steven Buckley and Patrick Sweeney to pay back the individual payments they received in exchange for tossing appeals they’d launched over a revised $7.5 million settlement in a dietary supplement labeling class action, a three-judge panel said.
“The objectors’ settlement proceeds here belonged in equity and good conscience … to the class and ought to be disgorged,” the panel said.
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Frank’s attorney, M. Frank Bednarz of the Center for Class Action Fairness, told Law360 in an email Thursday that the Seventh Circuit’s ruling has “made life harder for bad-faith objectors.”
“Courts should not allow corporate defendants or plaintiffs’ attorneys to buy out appeals with cynical side-deals; when objectors must benefit the class in order to get paid, class members will benefit,” he said.
Read the full article at Law360.