That’s what plaintiffs’ lawyers will receive for a federal class action that was dismissed on summary judgment for lack of evidence. The Eleventh Circuit had previously pooh-poohed defendants’ claims that the potentially bankrupting scope of the class action would force them into extortionate settlements. For refusing to pay protection money, United Healthcare and Coventry avoided paying millions of dollars in settlement money, but still had to pay their own attorneys and experts millions—and faced substantial risk that a court and a jury would get the decision wrong. Details at today’s Point of Law.
Posts Tagged ‘class actions’
Update: Western Digital hard drives
Reader Mickey Ferguson writes: “I just wanted to follow up on the original message I sent which you posted Apr. 14. On Jun. 20 I was notified that as a result of the settlement of this class action I am now the proud owner of the right to download free (and nearly worthless) hard disk drive backup and recovery software. Woo-hoo! Meanwhile, the lawyers win again. Details here.” More on the case: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, “Attention hard drive manufacturers! Most people believe that a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes!”, ZDNet, Jun. 29.
Am I a “hitman”?
I was so characterized by one Rep. Gary Ackerman (Jun. 13) because my testimony before a congressional subcommittee today about problems in securities class actions dared to mention Milberg Weiss. Decide for yourself.
New column — Times Online
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve begun a new periodic gig as a columnist on American law for the online Times (the London-based one). My first effort examines the possibility, discussed in this space recently, that fans of Barbra Streisand might file a class-action lawsuit against the singing legend because she is again doing a concert tour years after a tour that was supposed to be her farewell. (Walter Olson, “The long, long, long goodbye”, The Times Online, Jun. 27).
Incidentally, British readers visiting this site for the first time will find an archive of UK-related material here.
Philip Morris gets (some of) its money back
AP reports that the Illinois Supreme Court has released $2.15 billion of the gigantic, and almost bankrupting, appeal bond (Oct. 11, 2004; Apr. 2003) Philip Morris posted for the right to successfully appeal an absurd $10.1 billion Madison County judgment. (Dec. 15, 2005 and links therein.) Another $6 billion note awaits the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the certiorari appeal.
Update: Mirfasihi II
We covered the Seventh Circuit’s refusal to countenance in Mirfasihi v. Fleet Mortgage a collusive class-action settlement that benefited the attorneys but not the class members in January 2004; after remand, the parties went through the motions of jumping through hoops and returned with an economically identical settlement. The Seventh Circuit was not amused.
Interesting, and all too typical, statistic: out of the $2 million settlement pot, there were only $276,000 in claims filed by 190,000 class members, who apparently didn’t feel especially injured by Fleet Mortgage’s alleged wrongful practices of selling them products through telemarketing. (I wouldn’t oppose the death penalty for telemarketing, but that’s just me.)
Squeezing John Torkelsen
Justin Scheck at The Recorder reports that prosecutors are putting a renewed squeeze on John Torkelsen, former star witness for Milberg Weiss, in another sign that the probe of the firm may have considerably farther to run. (“Federal Prosecutors Put Pressure on Milberg Weiss’ Star Expert”, Jun. 9). For our previous coverage of the colorful Torkelsen, who is preparing to serve a five-year federal prison sentence on unrelated charges, see Oct. 10, Nov. 5, and Nov. 18, 2005.
Suing Streisand for not staying retired?
According to the New York Daily News’ columnists Rush & Molloy (Jun. 13): “Barbra Streisand’s emergence from ‘retirement’ has set off a buzz among longtime Streisand fans, who say they paid exorbitant amounts of money for her last ‘retirement’ tour and may file a class-action suit against the legend for tricking them into thinking they were seeing her for the final time.”
For those who find this idea utterly far-fetched, it should be noted that quite a number of years ago an unsuccessful class-action suit was pursued against General Motors following its reintroduction of convertible Cadillac models; a few years earlier, some enthusiasts had purchased some other convertible Caddies following press buzz about how they were going to be the last convertibles built in America.
Milberg’s comments chorus
Peter Lattman throws open the question (Jun. 13) whether indicted Milberg Weiss should be kept on in lead counsel in class actions. The fun arrives with comments #4 through #15, entered in quick succession under twelve different names between 11:12 a.m. and 11:19, more than one per minute, each of which defends Milberg and deplores the indictment in tones that are, well, you might say, curiously consistent with one another. An employee comment-swarm? A prankster? Pure coincidence? If it was an instance of Astroturf commenting, it certainly could have been done more skillfully.
Update: Constantine’s antitrust fees
Lloyd Constantine of Constantine Cannon and his co-counsel asked a judge for more than $600 million in fees and expenses for their work representing plaintiffs in the Visa/MasterCard antitrust litigation (see “$550 million? We’re worth it”, Aug. 22, 2003). He hired two big-name lawprofs, Columbia’s Jack Coffee and Harvard’s Arthur Miller, to draw up expert reports blessing the fees. However, the judge described the request as “absurd” and “fundamentally unreasonable”, instead allowing $220 million. Cue the violins! (Paul Braverman, “A $220 Million Payday”, The American Lawyer, Jan. 20). Incidentally, “before he started the firm, [Constantine] spent eight years at Legal Services Corp. and 11 at the New York state attorney general’s office, where he was in charge of antitrust enforcement”.