A recent Law 360 story by Joyce Hanson, “Judge Questions Atty Fee Info in Checkers TCPA Settlement,” reports that an Illinois federal magistrate judge has withheld his final approval of a proposed class action settlement in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act suit against Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc., saying he wants the consumers' attorneys to answer two "significant" questions about how they calculated their fees.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Sunil R. Harjani said in a docket entry that he "believes that there are two significant questions" in the TCPA settlement, saying first that he wants lead plaintiff Madeleine Yates' lawyers to address Seventh Circuit law related to coupon or voucher settlements and to say how their proposal satisfies the standards set by the appeals court.

Second, Judge Harjani said, he wants more information to justify the request for $354,000 in attorney fees, considering that consumers have submitted only 7,017 eligible claim forms for the two $5 Checkers merchandise vouchers per class member proposed in the TCPA settlement.  Those 7,017 submitted claims, resulting in a total cash value of $70,170, came after Yates' lawyers had emailed 3.5 million notices and sent 26,594 mailed notices, according to the judge.

"Plaintiff's counsel should evaluate the case law in the Seventh Circuit and explain why the lodestar method should be used here, and why the court should not consider the significant multiplier applied to attorneys' fees above the actual cash value given to the eligible class members," the docket entry said.  The lodestar method ties fee awards for class counsel to hours worked in litigation, multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate.