Mealey's Attorney Fees : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Attorney Fees

October 17, 2024
Illinois High Court Upholds Attorney Fee Award For Work On Liquidating Estates

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed that two attorneys and their law firms are entitled to a quantum meruit recovery of more than $1.6 million in fees and expenses for the work they did in litigation to liquidate and divide assets of two estates before terminating their services, finding that the trial court properly used the contingency fee arrangement in the parties’ attorney-client contract to determine the amount of fees owed.
October 16, 2024
Panel Affirms Fee Award For Planned Parenthood In Undercover Investigation Row

SAN FRANCISCO — A panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that a lower court’s award of $13,781,010.42 in attorney fees and costs to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. “was not unreasonably disproportionate” in its case against anti-abortion activists that conducted an undercover investigative reporting operation related to claims that Planned Parenthood regularly harvested fetal organ tissue.
October 16, 2024
Nevada High Court Affirms Retroactive Application Of Higher Attorney Fee Cap

CARSON CITY, Nev. — A trial court did not err in awarding the prevailing plaintiffs in a personal injury case the maximum attorney fee award under revised rules that went into effect after the defendants filed their request for a new trial because the amendment to the rules was a procedural change governing the remedy and did not affect the parties’ substantive rights, a Nevada Supreme Court panel ruled.
October 16, 2024
Parties Brief Dispute Over Which Legal Fees Fall Under Reinsurance Contract

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama federal judge has ordered an insurer to respond to a reinsurer’s objections to parts of declarations it submitted in summary judgment briefing concerning disputed legal fees.
October 15, 2024
U.S. High Court Won’t Review EAJA Fee Denial In ESOP Challenge

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As urged by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 15 declined to review denial of an Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) request for attorney fees and nontaxable costs in an unsuccessful challenge to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) deal.
October 15, 2024
New York Times’ Auto Renewal Class Settlement Granted Final Approval

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval of a $2,375,000 nonreversionary cash settlement to be paid by The New York Times Co. to end a class complaint accusing the newspaper publisher of engaging in an illegal “automatic renewal” scheme on its website and mobile application for The New York Times newspaper, approved the award of attorney fees, costs and expenses of $791,666.66 and approved a class representative incentive award of $5,000; the approval followed additional settlement negotiations after the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed final approval of a settlement that included $1.65 million in cash plus “coupons.”
October 14, 2024
Appeal And Attorney Fee Bid Are Dropped In ERISA Imprudence Case

SANTA ANA, Calif. — An appeal filed after defendants won on all claims after a bench trial in a consolidated Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over 401(k) fees and funds has been voluntarily dismissed with prejudice pursuant to a stipulation, and the defendants told a California federal court they are withdrawing a fee award request and an application to tax costs.
October 11, 2024
Federal Circuit Vacates Claim Construction, Summary Judgment, Fees In Patent Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Nevada erred in construing the claim “automatically detecting” in a patent dispute between two technology companies, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals said Oct. 10; the panel reversed the entry of summary judgment of noninfringement in the defendant company’s favor and vacated the award of nearly $6.9 million in attorney fees.
October 11, 2024
Disability Insurer Says Claimant Not Entitled To More Than $445K In Attorney Fees

MINNEAPOLIS — A disability plan participant is not entitled to more than $445,000 in attorney fees because the participant’s submissions in support of the requested amount are based on unreasonable hourly rates and unsupported time entries, a disability insurer says in its response to the participant’s motion for attorney fees filed in Minnesota federal court.
October 10, 2024
$2.72M In Fees And Costs Awarded In ERISA Row Involving Withdrawal Liability

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Making slight reductions and reproaching “the defendants’ contumacy and intractability,” a District of Columbia federal court judge awarded attorney fees of $2,533,576.52 and costs of $187,769.17, both subject to postjudgment interest, in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act withdrawal liability case.
October 10, 2024
Judge Remands California Labeling Suit Against Kroger, Awards Attorney Fees

LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge on Oct. 9 remanded a lawsuit brought by two California county district attorneys against Kroger Co. for allegedly violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and false advertising law (FAL) by misrepresenting caloric content on certain products and awarded the plaintiffs attorney fees after finding that Kroger “lacked an objectively reasonable basis for seeking removal.”
October 09, 2024
Final Approval Granted To $75M Settlement, Fees In Investor Suit Against Tech Firm

SAN DIEGO — In a securities class action, a California federal judge granted final approval to a $75 million settlement and awarded the plaintiffs’ counsel 23% of the settlement fund for attorney fees, bringing an end to claims brought by investors in Qualcomm Inc. against the company and certain of its executives alleging that the company issued false claims to investors about certain company practices.
October 09, 2024
$6 Million Settlement Of MDL Over Health Care Firms’ Data Breach Gets Final OK

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Six months after he preliminarily approved a $6 million settlement of a multidistrict litigation over a 2020 data breach experienced by a pediatric medical services provider, a Florida federal judge granted a motion by the plaintiffs for final approval of that settlement, as well as an accompanying motion for attorney fees and costs.
October 09, 2024
2nd Circuit: Keyword Search Ads Based On Trademarks Not Infringing

NEW YORK — Affirming a New York federal judge’s entry of judgment on the pleadings in a trademark dispute between competing eyewear brands, the Second Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Oct. 8 said that “the mere act of purchasing a search engine keyword that is a competitor’s trademark does not alone, in the context of keyword search advertising, constitute trademark infringement.”
October 09, 2024
7th Circuit: No Fees In Trademark Dispute Over Pipes For Smoking

CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois was right to deny a smoking pipe manufacturer’s motion for attorney fees after a plaintiff trademark owner voluntarily dismissed with prejudice his infringement claim against the company, a panel of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, finding that the defendant company failed to show how the case is “exceptional” as required for attorney fees under the Lanham Act.
October 09, 2024
$490M Settlement Between Apple, Investors Over IPhone Sales Gets Final OK

OAKLAND, Calif. — Finding it “fair, adequate, and reasonable,” a federal judge in California granted final approval of a $490 million settlement in a class complaint brought by investors in Apple Inc. who say the company’s CEO issued misleading statements about Apple’s sales of iPhones in China and awarded class counsel $107.8 million, or 22% of the settlement fund, in attorney fees.
October 08, 2024
U.S. High Court Hears Arguments On Preliminary Injunction And Attorney Fees

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A preliminary injunction is nothing more than “a threshold prediction of the likelihood of success based on a truncated record” and can’t make a plaintiff a prevailing party for the purposes of awarding attorney fees, an attorney representing the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles argued Oct. 8 before the U.S. Supreme Court.
October 08, 2024
3rd Circuit Affirms Rulings For Former Exec In ERISA ‘Top Hat’ Benefits Row

PHILADELPHIA — Upholding rulings issued after a bench trial, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in a nonprecedential disposition that the rate used to calculate a lump sum distribution was unreasonable under the terms of the “top hat” supplemental executive retirement plan (SERP) at issue and that there was no clear error in the finding that the board “acted in bad faith.”
October 08, 2024
$500K Attorney Fee Deal Struck, Appeal Over ESG Factor Ruling Dropped

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri federal judge has adopted a stipulation in which Missouri state officials agreed to a $500,000 attorney fee award and dismissal with prejudice of their appeal of a ruling that imposed a statewide permanent injunction barring enforcement of parts of two new rules a trade association said would have required “a state-authored script” for “incorporating a social or nonfinancial objective into investment advice.”
October 07, 2024
Settlement With ‘Landmark’ $10M Recovery Gets Initial OK In Mortality Table Row

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal granted preliminary approval to a class settlement including what retirees said would be a “landmark recovery” of $10 million on Oct. 4; the proposal in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over allegedly outdated mortality tables used to calculate joint and survivor annuity (JSA) benefits in two Citgo Petroleum Corp. pension plans also includes up to $4.75 million for attorney fees, expenses and service awards.
October 07, 2024
Appeals Court Says Lower Court Failed To Follow Guidelines For Insolvent Estates

JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi appeals court reversed and remanded a lower court’s final judgment ordering payment of creditors’ claims and closing a decedent’s insolvent estate, which gave priority to attorney fee claims but denied other claims, finding that because the lower court failed to provide evidence to show that it complied with insolvent estate statutory requirements, the judgment must be reversed and remanded.
October 04, 2024
Federal Judge Grants Attorney Fees To Defendant In FTC Deception Case

ATLANTA — A federal judge in Georgia granted partial attorney fees to one of two men the Federal Trade Commission alleged were involved in deceptively marketing and selling discount club memberships through online landing pages and telemarketing calls.
October 03, 2024
Retirees: $10M Would Be ‘Landmark Recovery’ In Actuarial Equivalence Case

CHICAGO — Saying it would be a “landmark recovery,” retirees who filed an Employee Retirement Income Security Act suit over allegedly outdated mortality tables used to calculate joint and survivor annuity (JSA) benefits in two Citgo Petroleum Corp. pension plans on Oct. 2 asked an Illinois federal court for preliminary approval of a $10 million class settlement plus up to $4.75 million for attorney fees, expenses and service awards.
October 03, 2024
10th Circuit Addresses ERISA Disclosures In Coverage Dispute Ruling

DENVER — On review of several decisions in a case over residential treatment coverage, a 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated summary judgment for the insureds on a Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Parity Act) claim for lack of standing and, in “an issue of first impression in this circuit,” ruled that an administrative services agreement (ASA) falls within an Employee Retirement Income Security Act disclosure requirement.
October 03, 2024
Jury Award In Favor Of Homeowners, Against Contractor Supported By Evidence

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa Court of Appeals on Oct. 2 affirmed a jury verdict entered in favor of homeowners and against a contractor in a contract dispute after determining that the verdict on the homeowners’ breach of contract and consumer fraud claims is supported by “substantial evidence.”