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Judge Trims Attorney Fees in Vertex Junk Fax Settlement

March 22, 2019 | Posted in : Contingency Fees / POF, Expenses / Costs, Fee Award, Fee Award Factors, Fee Reduction, Fee Request, Hourly Rates, Lodestar, Practice Area: Class Action / Mass Tort / MDL

A recent Law 360 story by Chris Villani, “Attys’ Fees Trimmed to $1.3M in Vertex Junk Fax Settlement,” reports that two firms serving as class counsel in a junk fax settlement with Vertex Pharmaceuticals should receive less than they requested in fees because they overstated the $4.75 million deal's benefit to the class, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled.  Counsel Anderson & Wanca and Swartz & Swartz PC had asked for a 33 percent cut, or just over $1.58 million, when the proposed class action settled in February 2018.  However, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer C. Boal said that request was a bit too high, dropping the amount to 28 percent, or $1.33 million.

“This court is satisfied with the quality of class counsel; and counsel spent over 1,500 hours in this matter with a lodestar value of $807,148.16,” Judge Boal wrote.  “On the other hand, class counsel overstate the extent of the benefit obtained as it relates to the class as a whole.”  The attorneys who led the suit said it was the largest recovery under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that the District of Massachusetts had ever seen.  But Judge Boal noted that only 8 percent of the class members made a timely claim, so the amount paid to them will total around $351,000.

“Thus, class counsel stands to receive more than four times the amount of money that will be received by clients in whose name the suit was brought,” the judge wrote.  “In balancing these considerations, this court finds that an attorney’s fee award in the amount of 28 percent of the settlement fund is reasonable in this case.”  Additionally, Judge Boal awarded only $41,000 of $90,000 in requested expense reimbursements, saying the balance lacked sufficient documentation.  She also approved a $15,000 incentive award for the class representative, Cincinnati health care provider Physicians Healthsource Inc.