After a class-action settlement in Madison County, Ill. between Ameritech and class action lawyers Korein Tillery over alleged unfairness in the giant phone company’s SimpliFive rate program, the Citizens Utility Board, a consumer advocacy group, petitioned the court to keep track of how much of the ostensible $12.4 million in refunds for customers actually got paid out. (Korein Tillery, for its part, is slated to get $1.9 million in fees). Last month, following opposition to the motion by both the Korein firm and Ameritech parent Southwestern Bell, “Madison County Circuit Judge Nicholas G. Byron rejected the Citizens Utility Board motion, ruling that the board had no standing in the case. Byron’s ruling means that the public will never know how much will be paid out.” “You would have to wonder why the plaintiff attorney would be so adamantly opposed to making this information public,” said Terryl Francis, a retired attorney representing the Citizens Utility Board. “After all, he’s supposed to be fighting for the class.” More:

Lester Brickman, a law professor at Cardozo Law School in New York and a critic of the Madison County Circuit Court, said Byron, Korein Tillery and SBC had a “mutual interest in suppressing the actual number of people who claim the benefits secured for them.”

Brickman said: “It’s not a surprising outcome, because the information the Citizens Utility Board was requesting would prove embarrassing to the court. It’s a sad comment on the state of class actions that a judge joins forces with both the plaintiff lawyer and the defendant to suppress this information.”

(Paul Hampel, “Judge’s ruling keeps payout in Ameritech case under wraps”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 17).

Filed under: class actions, Madison County