Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness won its challenge to a class action settlement deal related to the merger between Walgreens and Boots pharmacies.
Late last week the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled that the $14 million fee request by attorneys in a coupon settlement over Justice clothing store sales was excessive under federal law and that only $5.3 million could be currently justified.
In a victory for CCAF, the new settlement provides a $700,000 fund, which will provide more than $500,000 to class members, as a result of the Center’s involvement in the litigation. The original settlement provided only attorneys’ fees and meaningless label changes to class members.
Professor Sean J. Griffith objected to a class action settlement that paid Pharmacyclics shareholders like him $0 while providing up to $725,000 in attorneys' fees.
On July 29, 2016 the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled that the $14 million fee request by attorneys in a coupon settlement over Justice clothing store sales was excessive under federal law and that only $5.3 million could be currently justified. At the conclusion of the coupon redemption period, the objectors CCAF represents moved to disgorge pay-offs that had been made to self-interested so-called "professional objectors."
“A class member deserves more than a potentially useless date voucher from It’s Just Lunch, which is why we object to the current settlement which awards millions to the attorneys who decided to take up the case and leaves the nationwide class members with nothing,” said CCAF attorney Anna St. John. “Quite simply, the settlement is unfair and the court should reject it.”
In a victory for CCAF, the district court denied approval of the settlement. From the bench, and for many of the reasons discussed in Barton's objection, the Court observed that the proposed settlement provided little to no benefit to the national class and, thus, class members were better off retaining their rights than settling for the relief provided by the settlement.
Frank told TheDCNF that courts have ways of ensuring “the money gets to the victims,” including “telling the lawyers they don’t get paid if they don’t find” everybody who should be paid. “When the courts hold their feet to the fire, the money gets to the victims,” Frank said.
Frank took issue with these terms, so he bought a pack of "Ultra" batteries from Amazon.com to become a class member. "This is really a settlement structured to benefit the attorneys and nobody else," he said.
BakerHostetler cites the Center for Class Action Fairness's case in their 2015 Class Action Fairness Year-End Review.
