Law.com’s Amanda Bronstad wrote about the HLLI’s successful appeal in Williams v. Reckitt Benckiser LLC, where on April 12, 2023, the Eleventh Circuit reversed final approval of a settlement that provided scant benefit to the class.
Although class counsel characterized the deal as an “$8 million settlement,” the panel found agreed that only about $1.1 million could reasonably go to class members, purchasers the purported brain supplement Neuriva.
Bronstad writes:
In a win for objector lawyer Ted Frank, a federal appeals court reversed approval of an $8 million class action settlement over the brain performance supplement Neuriva.
Frank had argued that the settlement was overvalued and attorney fees were disproportionately high. Meanwhile, plaintiffs’ attorneys had challenged his standing to object in the first place.
But, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found that Frank, the director of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and the Center for Class Action Fairness, had standing but reversed the settlement’s approval for its own reasons.
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“It’s a very strong opinion, and gratifying to see the Eleventh Circuit favorably cite our wins,” Frank said. “I don’t see how this settlement can be approved on remand, given the mandate.” He also said the ruling doesn’t bode well for lawyers who got a class action settlement over Johnson & Johnson’s recalled sunscreen. On Feb. 28, U.S. District Judge Anuraag “Raag” Singhal, of the Southern District of Florida, approved the settlement despite Frank’s objection.
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In Wednesday’s decision, the Eleventh Circuit instructed that the district judge should “consider the points raised by Frank in this appeal” when reevaluating the settlement’s approval, including “whether the proposed attorneys’ fees are disproportionately large compared to the amount of relief reasonably expected to be provided to the class.”