FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Flint, MI (March 30, 2021) – Late Monday night, the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute filed objections on behalf of a group of Flint residents challenging an excessive $202 million fee request from a partial $641 million settlement of the Flint water crisis. HLLI represents objecting Flint residents and parents Raymond Hall, Robert Hempel, and Ashley Janowiak pro bono.
The $202 million would be deducted from awards to claimants, and nearly 80% of the settlement fund has been earmarked for children who will have to deal with lifelong effects of lead exposure caused by the 2014-15 Flint water crisis. Plaintiffs’ attorneys have proposed collecting a 31.6% fee from all settlement awards—even from children and class members who never retained an attorney.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys requested nearly double the amount of fees ordinarily granted in cases of similar size. The partial settlement is not strictly a class action, but the fee request also compares unfavorably to mass tort settlements that do not charge all claimants a high percentage of their recovery. Normally, only those claimants who decided to retain attorneys with high contingency fees must pay high rates like the 27% assessments that would be charged to unrepresented claimants under the fee request.
The Hall objectors ask the court to request that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel to file comments on the fee request. The Michigan Attorney General agreed to settlement terms prohibiting her from challenging the $202 million fee request unless the court requests her to do so.
The Hall objectors also argued the fee request was exaggerated in an attempt to justify the enormous request. In particular, co-liaison counsel Napoli Shkolnik submitted a high-level billing summary for dozens of $500/hour “associates” (about $11 million dollars’ worth), but these were in actuality temporary attorneys likely paid under $50/hour rather than attorneys employed by the firm.
The objectors also want more transparency from the fee request. “When corporations are responsible for paying attorneys’ fees, they scrutinize a detailed fee request and challenge unjustified rates, hours, and expenses; we want the same chance,” said Frank Bednarz, an attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute who is representing the group of objectors. “Why should children poisoned with lead—souls who may never become the people that God intended them to be—have less of an opportunity to challenge attorneys’ fees than Walmart or Facebook?”
Mr. Bednarz intends to appear on behalf of the objectors at a fairness hearing currently scheduled for July 12, 2021, in front of United States District Judge Judith E. Levy. “We believe our arguments are compelling, and we look forward to presenting them to the court,” said Mr. Bednarz.
Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute is a nonprofit public interest law firm formed in 2019. HLLI challenges administrative and regulatory actions and abuses of the class action and civil justice system that exceed constitutional limits, promote rent-seeking, or otherwise improperly create deadweight loss; and challenges improper restrictions on speech and other actions beyond constitutional bounds. Its Center for Class Action Fairness has won Supreme Court and appellate precedents on behalf of class members, and over $200 million for consumers and shareholders.
HLLI’s website is http://hlli.org.
Contact:
Ted Frank, 703-203-3848, ted.frank@hlli.org
Frank Bednarz, 801-706-2690, frank.bednarz@hlli.org