A recent Law 360 story by Kevin Penton, “Anapol Weiss Pushes 3rd Circ. To Deny NFL Deal Fee Grab,” reports that the Third Circuit should affirm the toss of an attorney's bid for a third of a $4.6 million fee awarded in NFL concussion litigation, as the lawyer hasn't established the existence of a deal that would net him the money in exchange for referring former players to the case, Anapol Weiss LLP has asserted.
John Lorentz has submitted insufficient evidence to buttress his claim that a predecessor firm to Anapol Weiss agreed to compensate him for referring former players Jim McMahon, Joseph Thomas and Michael Flurry to the class action by granting him a third of its common benefit fees, which in May 2018 totaled over $4.6 million, the firm told the appellate court in a brief.
While Anapol Weiss — known as Anapol Schwartz Weiss Cohan Feldman & Smalley PC when Lorentz referred the players in 2011 — acknowledges that it agreed to compensate Lorentz with a third of the net recovery, the firm notes that the agreements also specify that the common benefit fee would not be included, according to Anapol Weiss' brief, which does not specify how much the attorney otherwise would receive. "This court should affirm the district court's denial of Lorentz's petition because the record clearly demonstrates that Lorentz has no entitlement to any portion of Anapol Weiss' common benefit fee award," the firm's brief said.
The April 2015 settlement agreement in the concussion MDL established a bottomless fund over a 65-year period to compensate a class of some 22,000 former NFL players. The deal offers payments ranging from $1.5 million to $5 million for each retired player diagnosed with some of the most serious degenerative conditions connected to traumatic brain injuries, including dementia, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.
Lorentz sought to intervene in the concussion case in March 2017, contending the firm orally promised him one-third of any attorney fees won in the case in exchange for his referral of potential class representatives, according to court documents. In May 2018, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania allowed Lorentz to intervene in the case but denied him his bid for a portion of the common benefit fees, according to the documents.
"The district court erred by summarily dismissing Lorentz's claim for breach of his referral fee agreement with Anapol," the attorney told the Third Circuit last month in an opening brief. "Lorentz pled all elements of a valid claim for breach of the agreement, common benefit fees can be the basis for a referral fee agreement, and no affirmative matter barred Lorentz’s claim."