Latest development in the affair that brought unwelcome scrutiny to former Calif. governor Gray Davis and his ties to the Litigation Lobby (see Dec. 5, 2000 and Jun. 22-24, 2001): “Court-ordered arbitration secretly delivered a $23.7 million payday to attorneys who successfully battled the state over smog fees wrongfully charged to 1.7 million motorists. The award,” down from an original $88.5 million, “represents as much as arbiters could give the team of attorneys led by a high-powered San Diego law firm, under limits imposed by a Court of Appeal ruling in 2002.” State officials had unsuccessfully sought to keep the earlier award under wraps, and attorney General Bill Lockyer was not exactly at pains to publicize this one: “The California Attorney General’s office, after rebuffing repeated inquiries into the status of the arbitration, this week confirmed that a ruling had been issued but refused to release any more information, citing attorney-client privilege.” The Schwarzenegger administration, however, responded promptly to an open-records request. (Michael Gardner, “Lawyers get $23.7 million in smog-fee fight”, San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 20).
Posts Tagged ‘class actions’
Update: Compaq beats glitch suit again
Following the spectacular $2 billion class action settlement in Beaumont, Texas against Toshiba for a reported data glitch in its laptop computers (see Nov. 3, 1999 and later coverage) class action lawyers descended with copycat suits against Compaq and other rival laptop makers. A federal class action was however rejected (see May 11-13, 2001) and now the Texas Supreme Court has rejected a national class action filed in Texas state courts. However, “attorneys for the class aren’t throwing in the towel and say a statewide class action still is possible”. Besides proffering other defenses, a lawyer for the company “contends that a buffer in Compaq’s computers prevents problems with the FDC [floppy disk controller].” (Mary Alice Robbins, “Court Boots Nationwide Class Action Against Compaq”, Texas Lawyer, May 18).
Lerach to Google: cough up bettor bucks
“Lerach Coughlin Stoia & Robbins …filed a class action against Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and 10 other Internet search engines that claims they have been promoting illegal gambling on their Web sites and requests that they fork over the ad revenue. The complaint, filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, requests that the search engines put revenue from advertising Internet gambling into a fund that would provide restitution to California Indian Tribes or other licensed gambling businesses in California. The complaint says money in the fund would also go to the spouses of gamblers who have had community property taken away as a result of illegal gambling and to the state treasury.” (Brenda Sandburg, “Casino Come-Ons Return Bad Result for Search Sites”, The Recorder, Aug. 5; David Legard, “Gambling lawsuit filed against top Web content sites”, IDG/Computerworld, Aug. 4). For questions about the legality of accepting advertising from offshore casinos, see Apr. 21. Earlier lawsuits have gone after credit card companies for facilitating offshore gambling transactions (see Dec. 7, 1999), but a Lerach attorney said this was the first suit against search engines.
Batch of reader letters
We’ve posted another four letters from our backed-up pipeline on our letters page. Among the topics this time: what skillful malpractice defense lawyers talk about at trial, and what they don’t; sudden acceleration litigation; what should you do with a class action settlement check, if you don’t approve of the lawsuit?; and the curiously uncontroversial powers of Eliot Spitzer.
Won its case, still paid $300M to settle
Michael Krauss at Point Of Law today reports on a securities action against drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb in which the company won an outright dismissal of the case (“with prejudice” = cannot be filed again), but paid $300 million anyway rather than take its chances on appeal. Also at Point Of Law today: the Federal Trade Commission is throwing a conference next month on the subject of protecting consumers in class actions; and if you want a press pass to the ATLA convention, be aware that certain kinds of press are not welcome. Update Mar. 2, 2005 (judge in Bristol-Myers case slashes fees).
“Pay the lawyers in coupons, too”
The editorialists of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News (Jul. 25) are critical of the settlement of a class action suit against AT&T Wireless said to be worth a maximum of $20 million in coupons, airtime and other benefits. Under the deal, most former subscribers will be offered noncash benefits with a value not to exceed $3, while current subscribers will be offered noncash benefits with an estimated average value of $10.50. Denver law firm Hill & Robbins (see also Jun. 9) is asking for $3 million cash in fees, plus $750,000 in expenses. The suit challenged the cell-phone company’s practice of delayed roaming charge billing, under which some roaming fees were not charged to customers’ bills until the next month, resulting in a detriment to those customers who had used up all their allotted minutes in the later month. See also John Accola, “Lawyers’ bonanza in AT&T lawsuit”, Scripps Howard/Sun, Jul. 20 (via Colorado Civil Justice League).
Update: Microsoft fee-ing frenzy
“A group of national law firms that failed to recover significant damages in federal antitrust suits against Microsoft is demanding a cut of the $15.5 million in fees awarded to plaintiffs lawyers in a Florida class action suit against the software giant.” Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll and thirty other firms that prosecuted a mostly unsuccessful federal class action say the lawyers in the Florida case used information they developed and, although they never signed an agreement to share fees, should cough up a quantum meruit. “The federal lawyers were spectacularly unsuccessful and only got one small class certified,” said Daryl Libow of Sullivan & Cromwell, who represents Microsoft. “They weren’t satisfied with the fees, so they started roaming the country to see if they could get more.” (Laurie Cunningham, “Lawyers in U.S. Microsoft Case Want Cut of Fees in Miami Suit”, Miami Daily Business Review, Jul. 23). More on Microsoft cases: Jul. 9, Mar. 31 and links from there.
William Lerach and Milberg Weiss
…and the kind of coverage they get in the New York Times, discussed on Point Of Law this morning.
Call it a settlement practice
Glimpses of the world of shareholder litigation: “Shareholder suits are a big part of the practice at [Colchester, Ct.-based] Scott & Scott, but in the firm’s seven years of existence, none has gone to trial, [firm attorney Neil R.] Rothstein said.” (“Commerce Bancorp sued over indictments”, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul. 7).