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Mealey's Attorney Fees

  • April 18, 2025

    Pennsylvania Federal Judge Awards Reduced $982,998 In Fees In Denny’s Settlement

    PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania federal judge has awarded a plaintiff in a wage and hour class settlement involving Denny’s restaurants $982,998 in attorney fees, reducing the requested amount by 11% for a variety of reasons, including reasonable fees for the Pittsburgh legal market.

  • April 18, 2025

    Judge Won’t Reconsider Denying Attorney Fees In Jury Trial Microcaptive Case

    FORT MYERS, Fla. — Saying that the rules the corporate plaintiffs invoked don’t “provide a basis for reconsideration,” a Florida federal judge declined to revisit his denial of approximately $600,000 in attorney fees and costs in consolidated jury trial cases where they successfully challenged penalties that were imposed because the Internal Revenue Service deemed their involvement with purported microcaptive insurance companies to be promotion of abusive tax shelters.

  • April 17, 2025

    $5M Deal Gets Final OK, With Trimmed Awards, In ERISA Fees, Funds Case

    PHILADELPHIA — A $5 million class settlement including an agreement to conduct requests for proposals (RFPs) has been granted final approval in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit challenging a multiemployer retirement plan’s fund choices, share classes and record-keeping, but a Pennsylvania federal judge awarded reduced incentive awards and attorney fees of $1,000 and $950,000, respectively, instead of the $8,000 and $1,666,500 requested.

  • April 17, 2025

    $195,000 Class Deal Gets Final OK In Suit Over Allegedly Fraudulent Policies

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — Noting the absence of objections and that “the average class member payment will be $467.77, and the highest payment will be $5,204.40,” a California federal judge granted final approval to a $195,000 class settlement that resolves a suit over allegedly counterfeited insurance policies sold through a captive reinsurance arrangement.

  • April 16, 2025

    Driver’s License Swiping Row Remanded To Oregon Court Without Attorney Fees Award

    PORTLAND, Ore. — A putative class action over a gas station chain’s practice of swiping customers’ driver’s licenses for age-restricted purchases was remanded to state court, with an Oregon federal judge fully adopting a magistrate’s recommendation to grant the plaintiff’s motion to remand for lack of standing.

  • April 16, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms $1.5M Fees Award For Planned Parenthood In RICO Suit

    SAN FRANCISCO — Six months after the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed an attorney fees award in favor of Planned Parenthood of America Inc. in its long-running racketeering and wiretap suit against a group of anti-abortion activists that secretly recorded conversations and meetings, the same appeals panel affirmed another attorney fees award for the organization, this time related to appellate proceedings.

  • April 16, 2025

    5th Circuit Remands Attorney Fees Issue In Hurricane Laura Coverage Dispute

    NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals remanded two questions regarding attorney fees to a lower federal court and otherwise affirmed the judgment in favor of the church insured in a bad faith lawsuit arising from Hurricane Laura damage.

  • April 15, 2025

    NFL Plan To 5th Circuit: Let Fee Award Appeal Proceed In Disability Benefits Row

    NEW ORLEANS — Telling the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the issues raised are not “grounds for dismissal” and that it “could not have forfeited an appeal of the new fee award and opinion before they existed, when the case was in the opposite posture,” the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan on April 14 asked to be allowed to proceed with its appeal of an award of more than $1.25 million in attorney fees and costs to a former National Football League player.

  • April 14, 2025

    Federal Judge Rules GoDaddy TCPA Class Settlement Ruling Is Appealable

    MOBILE, Ala. — A February order declining enforcement of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class settlement must be appealable as the decision involved a controlling question of law, “‘substantial’” differences of opinion exist and “‘immediate appeal may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation,’” a federal judge in Alabama ruled, quoting from 28 U.S. Code Section 1292(b).

  • April 11, 2025

    Prevailing Parties In Data Supply Agreement Row Get Almost $2.2M In Attorney Fees

    NEW YORK — Two marketing firms, which obtained a favorable summary judgment ruling over breach of contract and related claims by a data broker, were prevailing parties, a New York federal judge ruled, mostly granting their motion for attorney fees while declining to defer the ruling pending resolution of the plaintiff’s appeal.

  • April 11, 2025

    11th Circuit: No Fees For Tossed IP Claims In Land Purchase Dispute

    ATLANTA — An 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel left in place a jury’s finding that defendant real estate entities breached a land purchase agreement (LPA) but owed a plaintiff real estate company only $1 in damages; the panel also affirmed a Georgia federal judge’s decision to deny attorney fees to the plaintiff company for claims brought under the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act.

  • April 11, 2025

    Idaho Supreme Court Denies Utility’s Attorney Fees Quest Against Repeated Violator

    BOISE, Idaho — Although a nonprofit utility company partly prevailed in a dispute with a customer over a defective toilet and service shutoffs, the Idaho Supreme Court agreed with a trial court’s conclusion that because the utility did not completely prevail, it was not entitled to an award of attorney fees.

  • April 09, 2025

    Court Lacked Jurisdiction To Review Appraisal Award, Virginia Panel Affirms

    RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia appeals court on April 8 affirmed a lower court’s ruling that it lacked jurisdiction to review a $1.7 million appraisal award in a hail and windstorm coverage dispute under the statute pleaded, further denying a property insurer and church insured’s requests for appellate attorney fees and costs.

  • April 09, 2025

    Federal Judge Approves Lyft Shareholder Derivative Settlement Requiring Reforms

    OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted final approval to a settlement in a shareholder derivative class action brought against Lyft Inc., under which the company agrees to implement several safety reforms.

  • April 09, 2025

    Federal Judge Grants Final Approval Of $433.5M Securities Fraud Settlement

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York has granted final approval of a $433.5 million settlement to end a securities fraud class action brought by investors against a Cayman Islands corporation headquartered in Hangzhou, China, and current and former executives for allegedly violating federal securities laws by making misrepresentations regarding the initial public offering of another company in which the defendant company owned a 33% equity interest and not disclosing material facts surrounding an investigation by Chinese regulators into allegedly illegal merchant exclusivity practices.

  • April 08, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Millions In Awards In Long-Running Trade Secret Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals largely affirmed a Texas federal judge’s entry of monetary damages and attorney fees in a long-running intellectual property dispute involving patents and trade secret claims related to smartphone light censor products; the panel remanded for further analysis on the matter of prejudgment interest, holding that the judge erred in that regard.

  • April 07, 2025

    1 Settlement OK’d In MOVEit Data Breach MDL; Attorney Fees Sought In Another

    BOSTON — The day after a Massachusetts federal judge granted final approval to a $2.8 million settlement with a health care billing firm that is one of the defendants in a multidistrict litigation over a 2023 ransomware attack that affected users of the MOVEit file-transfer app, the lead defendant in another component suit in the MDL, which had a $9.95 million settlement preliminarily approved in September, on April 4 filed a motion for attorney fees.

  • April 07, 2025

    U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Review Timeliness, Fee Ruling In Miller Act Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its April 7 orders list, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that affirmed judgment for multiemployer funds on attorney fees and timeliness in a Miller Act case.

  • April 07, 2025

    More Than $12M In Attorney Fees, Expenses Awarded After Apple Gift Card Settlement

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge in California, over objections by Apple Inc. and Apple Value Services LLC (together, Apple), granted approval of $11.65 million in attorney fees and more than $500,000 in expenses sought by the plaintiffs and class counsel as part of a $35 million settlement in a case over an alleged iTunes gift card scam.

  • April 07, 2025

    Calif. Cities Want Discharge Case Reconsideration, Cite High Court CWA Decision

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — Two California cities are asking a federal judge to reconsider a barrage of rulings issued in favor of an environmental organization that sued them for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) through the discharge of bacteria pollution from stormwater sewage systems based on a recent decision in a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permittee requirements.

  • April 04, 2025

    8th Circuit Vacates Attorney Fee Award To Property Owners In Condemnation Suit

    ST. LOUIS — North Dakota property owners whose land was condemned for a right of way for a natural gas pipeline cannot recover $383,375 in attorney fees under the U.S. Natural Gas Act for their six-year legal fight against the condemnation, the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled.

  • April 04, 2025

    Judge Approves $15 Million Settlement Of Cash App Data Breach Class Action

    SAN FRANCISCO — Almost 10 months after a California federal judge preliminarily approved a $15 million settlement of a consolidated class action against the owners of Cash App over a pair of data breaches that exposed users’ personally identifiable information (PII) and account data, the judge granted the named plaintiffs’ motion for final approval, settling 16 claims, including negligence, fraud, invasion of privacy and unfair competition.

  • April 03, 2025

    Washington Appeals Court Reverses Attorney Fee Sanction In Estate Case

    TACOMA, Wash. — A Washington state appeals court affirmed that a state court has jurisdiction over the estate of a California decedent but reversed the trial court’s attorney fee sanction against the decedent’s brother for bringing a frivolous petition against probate and denied awarding attorney fees for either party for the appeal.

  • April 03, 2025

    Final Approval Of Settlement Of Barclays’ Accidental Securities Sales Suit Granted

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval to a $19.5 million settlement of a putative class action complaint filed over how Barclays PLC and Barclays Bank PLC (collectively, Barclays) and certain of their executives responded to the accidental sale of unregistered securities.

  • April 01, 2025

    Federal Judge Rules For Insurer In Coverage Dispute Arising From Ghost Gun Claims

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted a commercial general liability insurer’s motion for partial summary judgment and denied a firearms retailer insured’s cross-motion in a coverage dispute arising from ghost gun lawsuits after finding that the underlying actions “clearly allege” that the insured “engaged in deliberate conduct,” further denying the insured’s motion for attorney fees.