A recent Law 360 story by Dean Seal, “Class Attys Get $3M Cut of $9.85M US Airways Deal,” reports that three law firms in coastal California will get about 30% of the $9.85 million settlement they negotiated with US Airways Inc. to resolve nearly decade-old breach of contract claims over baggage delays. U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia K DeMarchi said that the $3 million in attorney fees and expenses requested by Karczag and Associates PC, Foley Bezek Behle & Curtis LLP and the Law Office of William M. Aron is fair given the 1,850 hours and $45,000 they’ve spent on settling the somewhat recently revived class action.
“The attorneys’ fees requested in the amount of $2,955,000 represents a multiplier of 3.11, which is reasonable and justified based on: the difficult and novel legal challenges faced by class counsel in this case; the risks and financial burdens that class counsel undertook in litigating this case on a fully contingent basis; and the significant benefits that are being made available to the class members under the settlement,” Judge DeMarchi said.
The judge’s final approval of settlement will net about $14 per person for a class of more than 400,000 flyers who traveled on US Airways between November 2005 and April 2010, reported checked baggage that was lost or delayed and were not refunded their $15 baggage fee. The airline merged with American Airlines Inc. in 2013.
The order also allots a $10,000 award for plaintiff and class representative Hayley Hickcox-Huffman. Hickcox-Huffman said in her 2010 complaint that after she paid a $15 checked baggage fee, she received her luggage a day late following a 2009 US Airways flight from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to San Luis Obispo, California. Hickcox-Huffman’s case was dismissed in 2011 on grounds that it was preempted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act, but the Ninth Circuit ruled in May 2017 that Hickcox-Huffman properly pled an express breach of contract that US Airways voluntarily entered into, defeating the preemption argument.
The appellate panel, in reviving the suit, cited the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case American Airlines Inc. v. Wolens, which held that state law breach of contract claims are not preempted.
At a hearing in October 2017, counsel for Hickcox-Huffman argued that she should not have to decide between her implied and express contract claims until after discovery, when the court is expected to learn more about the agreement between the airline and its passengers paying for checked baggage.
A judge ruled soon after that both types of breach could be alleged, but tossed Hickcox-Huffman’s breach of federal common law and “breach of self-imposed undertaking” claims, finding them redundant and not actionable. The case proceeded into discovery but was ultimately resolved after a two-day mediation session, according to court records.