Frank, litigation director at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, said the case would now go back to appellate judges in the Ninth Circuit, who would decide whether to kick it to the Northern District of California or decide the matter themselves. “The day of reckoning has been postponed,” he told MarketWatch. “But the writing is on the wall.”
“This decision simply delays the day of reckoning for this unfair practice,” said Ted Frank, Director of Litigation and Senior Attorney at the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute.
CCAF filed an amicus brief supporting a bipartisan coalition of 18 state attorneys general, lead by Mark Brnovich of Arizona, who seek to intervene and oppose an appalling attorney-centered class action settlement. States should have a meaningful ability to police class-action settlements when class action settlements harm residents and class members, as the Tristar settlement does.
CCAF attorneys object to settlements with two airlines because the settlements do not explain how class members will be compensated, and the money might be diverted to third party cy pres beneficiaries.
In January 2019, CCAF will become part of the new Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a free-market nonprofit public-interest law firm created by CEI/CCAF litigators Ted Frank and Melissa Holyoak.
"We think the court got it half right," attorney Adam Schulman, who argued the CEI's position before the appeals court, told the Northern California Record, adding that the remanding of the attorney fees was welcome, but it still allowed millions of dollars to be disbursed to non-class members. The institute objects to the way the "cy pres" doctrine is used in class actions.
Class member and CCAF attorney Adam Schulman objected to a slack fill settlement that provides class members with worthless labeling changes.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a landmark case brought by the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) challenging an unfair class action settlement in which lawyers and their hand-picked universities and pet causes got millions while class members got nothing.
No one has a precise count of the class action settlements that include cy pres payments, and Frank said many may be included in quiet agreements that are never disclosed to the class. Federal courts dispose of about 275,000 cases a year, with 350 of them class actions.
"This case is really about attorneys selling out their clients," Holyoak told the Washington Free Beacon. "We are arguing that this is unfair, and this is an abuse of the class action system, and an abuse of the cy pres system."
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