A recent Law 360 story by Dave Simpson, “Quinn Emanuel Gets $185M Fee From $3.7B Win in ACA Suits,” reports that a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge granted Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP's request for $185 million in fees stemming from two class actions against the federal government over so-called risk corridor payments under the Affordable Care Act, which resulted in a nearly $3.7 billion total win. Judge Kathryn C. Davis said that despite the "at times hyperbolic" motions for fees, the law firm did show "foresight" in focusing on a successful legal theory months before other parties jumped on that bandwagon. She granted its request for 5% of the winnings.
"At the end of the day, what is more important is that class counsel's legal theory resulted in a huge award to the classes here," Judge Davis said. Quinn Emanuel was the first firm in the country to file a lawsuit on behalf of a qualified health plan insurer accusing the federal government of unlawfully reneging on a commitment to shield ACA insurers from heavy financial losses.
Health Republic Insurance Co. sued the government in 2016 and in July 2020 won a judgment for $1.9 billion alongside a subclass of insurers. Common Ground Healthcare Cooperative sued the government in 2017 over similar claims and won a $1.7 billion judgment. Those cases set off a firestorm of parallel litigation across the country, alleging similar claims. Two of those cases ended up at the U.S. Supreme Court. In April 2020, the justices reversed Congress' denial of $12 billion in "risk corridor" funding, which the ACA dangled as an incentive for insurers during the law's first three years of operation.
While Quinn Emanuel didn't work on those cases directly, the firm argued in its request for fees in July 2020 that the Supreme Court "adopted the exact legal theory Quinn Emanuel set forth in the initial Health Republic complaint and which it advocated at every step." But in August 2020, objectors like Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc., UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. and others argued that class counsel was entitled to just $8.8 million after a lodestar cross-check.
They said that Quinn Emanuel had little to do with the litigation that ended up at the Supreme Court, and argued that the firm was trying to walk away with an award that would work out to an hourly rate of $18,000 per attorney. Class members signed on to the suit with a guarantee that the proposed 5% fee award would be subject to a lodestar cross-check, the motion said, which the firm had eschewed.
Quinn Emanuel shot back in September 2020 that the $8.8 million award proposed would discourage attorneys in the future from taking on similarly ambitious cases. The percentage model, which the insurers agreed to when choosing to join the class instead of pursuing individual claims, is favored by the courts for exactly this reason, the firm said. According to the firm, despite the dozens of companies signing on to the fee objection, most of them Kaiser or United entities, almost 90% of the class members have not objected.
Judge Davis sided with the firm. "These are not cases in which class counsel merely rode the coattails of other innovative litigators," she said. The 5% fee is well below market value, and the objectors propose what would amount to a .22% fee, she said. Further, the firm allocated 10,000 billable hours and might not have been paid for any of it had the outcome gone differently, the judge said.