“The settlement at issue in Frank vs. Gaos epitomizes cy pres abuse in class actions, where money is funneled to a slush fund for lawyers to send to their alma maters and pet causes rather than their clients,” CEI Senior Attorney Melissa Holyoak told Legal Newsline.
“EasySaver is a disturbing example of how the Ninth Circuit’s lenient approach to cy pres in class action settlements creates an incentive for class attorneys to favor sending money to their preferred causes and institutions even when distribution of funds to the class is feasible,” said [Ted] Frank.
NYT: Theodore H. Frank is familiar with the adage that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But later this month, he will stand before the Supreme Court to argue his own case.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (now also represented by Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute) and four individuals – John France, Daniel Frank, Jean-Claude Gruffat, and Charles Haywood – filed an appeal today with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, seeking to overturn unlawful conditions imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on a merger between three major U.S. cable companies. In 2015, Charter, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House…
A deal resolving claims that online consumers were automatically enrolled in a rewards program will stand, but the $8.7 million fee for class counsel must be recalculated, the Ninth Circuit held Oct. 3.
While Judge Durkin refused Frank’s request to intervene as a litigant, the judge said the plaintiffs’ attorneys must address Frank’s contentions concerning the Walgreen decision before allowing the attorneys to keep their fees.
In what's believed to be the first time a federal appellate court has been given a chance to address the issue, the Center for Class Action Fairness filed a brief with the Seventh Circuit that attacks the mootness fee racket.
Yesterday, the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) filed its opening brief in Alcarez v. Akorn, Inc., et al. CCAF is challenging an order denying CCAF’s intervention in three of six Akorn actions that were pending in the district court.
Theodore Frank has been firing shots at so-called “cy pres” settlements—an especially controversial component of some class actions—for more than a decade. On October 31, he will take his crusade all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, lock, stock and barrel.
CCAF senior attorney Melissa Holyoak told me: “Attorneys’ fees should always be based upon and proportionate to the relief actually received by class members—that’s something we fight for on a regular basis.”
