Posts Tagged ‘Grand Theft Auto’

The retreat of Grand Theft Auto: Class Action

The case that started me on the path to founding the Center for Class Action Fairness is now over: plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their appeal last week after voluntarily dismissing the court case February 22, giving up any shot at the $1 million in attorneys’ fees they had negotiated for themselves.

And if you’re on Facebook, do become a fan of the Center for Class Action Fairness so you can keep up with us and others can learn about it.

Bad journalism department: Grand Theft Auto settlement

As its press release says, Take Two Software settled a securities class action, yet multiple sources–including Dave Itzkoff’s story in the New York Times and Bloomberg–incorrectly report that it settled the consumer class action, complete with incorrect docket number. The consumer class action settlement was made in 2007 and, as Overlawyered readers might remember, rejected by the court, with the court’s decision to decertify the class still on appeal.

It’s unclear to me why either of those got it wrong, given that I contacted both Glovin and Itzkoff to let them know their error; Bloomberg issued two updates after my email, and Itzkoff had a chance to rewrite his incorrect blog post before it appeared in today’s Times, but neither has the story straight.

Latest issue of Class Action Watch

The latest issue of the Federalist Society’s Class Action Watch has many articles of interest to Overlawyered readers:

  • William E. Thomson & Kahn A. Scolnick on the Exxon Shipping case;
  • Jimmy Cline on Arkansas’s disregard for class action certification standards;
  • Jim Copland on the “Colossus” class action;
  • Laurel Harbour on the New Jersey Supreme Court decision on medical monitoring class actions;
  • Lyle Roberts on lead-counsel selection in securities class actions;
  • Mark A. Behrens & Frank Cruz-Alvarez on the lead paint public nuisance decision by the Rhode Island Supreme Court; and
  • Andrew Grossman, extensively citing to Overlawyered and my brief in discussing the Grand Theft Auto class action settlement rejection.

Grand Theft Auto: Class Action – The Frank Brief

Full proof that I don’t think all pro se representation is a bad thing: Following up our previous discussion of the GTA class action settlement and my objection: This morning, Friday, June 6, I filed this brief (which unlike the previous brief, I wrote myself), in opposition to the plaintiffs’ motions for court approval of the settlement and attorneys’ fees, in the Southern District of New York and served it upon counsel. With luck, I didn’t file the wrong brief.

Read On…

Grand Theft Auto: Class Action Settlement – $26,505 for the unrepresented class, $1 million fee request

We now know how many people signed up for the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas class action settlement out of the millions of members in the purported class.

Tier 1 (up to $35.00) (no exchange required): 416
Tier 2 (up to $17.50) (exchange required): 22
Tier 3 ($10.00) (exchange required): 131
Tier 4 ($5.00) (no exchange required): 2,050
Disc Exchange w/o cash: 57

2676 total claimants, receiving a total cash value of at most $26,505, though likely even less than that, given that the plaintiffs’ attorneys record no actual cash distribution.

The seven “representative” class members are asking for approval to receive another $24,500, or nearly half of the total cash recovery.

Of course, as we’ve discussed, none of these people had a legitimate cause of action or suffered any legally cognizable injury. But how much are the plaintiffs’ attorneys (from thirteen different offices of twelve different law firms!) asking for for this travesty of a lawsuit and settlement–one that was entirely redundant of the taxpayer-funded investigation conducted by the Los Angeles district attorney? They claim their time devoted to the litigation was worth $1,317,433, but are “generously” claiming a 28% discount for a total fees-and-costs request of $1 million.

Recognizing that this 3774% contingent fee looks fishy to the least scrutinizing of judges applying Rule 23 review, the plaintiffs have sought to inflate the appearance of accomplishment through a $870,000 cy pres award to the National PTA and ESRB. (As I’ve discussed, cy pres awards that do not directly benefit class members should not be used to justify fee awards.) They also inflate the award by claiming that the costs of notice, administration and disk replacement should be attributed to the size of the accomplished result, thus puffing matters up to over $2 million, consisting nearly entirely of empty calories for the plaintiffs they purport to be representing.

Alas, I was the only class member to docket a formal objection to this rip-off. (While it was my idea to object, I can take no credit for the objection brief, which was written by my attorney, Larry Schonbrun.) On Thursday, the plaintiffs’ attorneys filed a brief defending the settlement, with many cites to Overlawyered as ad hominem attacks on the objection. The court’s hearing is June 25.