On June 25, 2018, Judge Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York largely agreed with the objector concerning contract attorney billing, which results in nearly $100 million additional dollars going to class members. In spite of the successful objection, CCAF was only awarded $11,000 in attorneys fees.
Law360 cited CCAF attorney Anna St. John and Director of Litigation Ted Frank after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear CEI's case, Frank v. Gaos. CEI hopes the court rules in our favor and creates a standard that forbids attorneys from misusing class action settlements to selfishly put themselves and third parties ahead of their clients. Justices are set for the first time to consider the cy pres remedy, which distributes awards in class actions to parties…
Today the Supreme Court granted cert in Frank v. Gaos, a challenge to the class action settlement negotiated by the plaintiffs’ lawyers in Gaos v. Google which provided $0 to class members and $8.5 million to be divided between the plaintiffs’ lawyers – who received $1000/hour on this case – and third-party charities unrelated to the case.
Critics of these settlements described them as a form of suspect collusion between plaintiffs' lawyers and corporate defendants, since both benefit by arranging a settlement. Leading the challenge to these deals is Ted Frank, a Washington lawyer who regularly objects to class-action settlements.
But Theodore Frank and Melissa Ann Holyoak objected to what is called a “cy pres” agreement and said Monday they were gratified the court had taken the case. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court’s review will result in a standard forbidding attorneys from misusing class-action settlements to selfishly put themselves and third parties ahead of their clients,” said Frank
Class members and CCAF attorneys Ted Frank and Melissa Holyoak take their objection to Google search settlement to the Supreme Court. The settlement provided $0 to class members, but divided $8.5 million between the plaintiffs’ lawyers and third party cy pres recipients.
In objecting to the Google settlement, they said research centers based at Harvard and Stanford universities, among those slated for awards, had connections to both sides in the case: Google already supported the centers, and some plaintiffs’ attorneys had attended the schools.
The deal’s opponents were led by Ted Frank, director of litigation for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank. They said the deal violated procedural rules in U.S. law requiring settlements to be fair, reasonable and adequate.
“I do believe that the Department of Justice’s involvement and the interest from state attorneys general was helpful in getting the judge’s attention and making sure that this settlement received the scrutiny it deserved,” Schulman said.
The Center for Class Action Fairness objected on behalf of a class member in Farrell v. Bank of America, a class action in which plaintiffs’ counsel sought attorneys' fees that would compensate them at rates of over $7700 per hour of time they spent working on the case.
