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$3.4M Fee Request in $42M GM Oil Guzzling Settlement

September 25, 2019 | Posted in : Contingency Fees / POF, Expenses / Costs, Fee Award Factors, Fee Request, Hourly Rates, Practice Area: Class Action / Mass Tort / MDL

A recent Law 360 story by Linda Chiem, “Attys Seek $3.4M in Fees From $42M GM Oil-Guzzling Deal,” reports that attorneys have asked a Florida federal judge to sign off on nearly $3.4 million in fees for their work negotiating an approximately $42 million deal with General Motors LLC to end consumers' proposed class claims that certain Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain SUVs had defective oil-guzzling engines.

Plaintiffs' attorneys at Greg Coleman Law PC, Ahdoot & Wolfson PC and Whitfield Bryson & Mason LLP sought court approval for $3.39 million in attorney fees, $109,649 in litigation expenses and $4,500 apiece in service payments for each of the 12 named plaintiffs in three proposed class actions covered by the GM deal.  The attorneys said GM has already agreed to cover those costs, so they would not come out of the settlement pot, according to court documents.

The parties first told the court in April that they had reached a deal valued between $40 million and $45 million to end claims in the three suits alleging the 2.4-liter Ecotec engines in 2010-2013 Equinox and Terrain SUVs had defective piston rings that wore out too quickly and excessively guzzled oil.  In the filing, the plaintiffs' attorneys said the minimum value of the settlement is closer to $42.4 million, so their $3.39 million fees request works out to a "modest" 8% of the total settlement pot that's well within the parameters for "appropriate" fee awards in the Eleventh Circuit.

"Class counsel collectively devoted more than 3,200 attorney hours to the prosecution of this case," they said in their filing. "Accordingly, the amount of time and labor devoted to this case weighs in favor of finding class counsel's requested fee award reasonable."  The class counsel added: "The difficult and contingent nature of this case further demonstrates its undesirability.  There are few lawyers willing to invest significant time and resources prosecuting a lawsuit that involves complicated and uncertain legal questions and a substantial risk of receiving no compensation, which is evidenced by the fact that, to class counsel's knowledge, no other related class actions were filed elsewhere in the country."