Reuters’ Alison Frankel covered CCAF’s temporary success in obtaining an order to unearth the draft final approval order that plaintiff’s wrote for themselves in the Equifax settlement:
Judge Thrash called on class counsel from Doffermyre Shields Canfield & Knowles, DiCello Levitt Gutzler and Stueve Siegel Hanson to file the draft opinion in the Equifax docket “as soon as reasonably possible.” Class counsel did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment on the order.
Class action watchdog Ted Frank of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute contends that the draft opinion may show that the trial judge improperly adopted accusations by class counsel. As I’ve reported, Frank filed a motion last month at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he and other objectors are challenging approval of the Equifax settlement, calling for disclosure of the draft opinion.
Frank argued that Judge Thrash’s 122-page decision was dramatically more detailed than his oral order approving the settlement, raising the prospect that the judge simply adopted the draft submitted by class counsel. The written opinion also contained detailed criticism of Frank and other objectors that was not part of Judge Thrash’s oral decision, in which the judge merely acknowledged class counsel’s presentation on the objectors and said that, in his judgment, “most of the objections that were voiced here today did not take into consideration the best interest of the class itself.”
Read the whole article at Reuters.
May 15 Update: Several days after this story was published, plaintiffs moved to clarify, which was interpreted by Judge Thrash as a motion to reconsider. Judge thrash vacated the order described above.