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Mealey's Attorney Fees

  • March 07, 2025

    Disabled Child’s Parents’ Appeal Of Rulings, Fees Rejected By 3rd Circuit

    PHILADELPHIA — Parents who took the fight for their disabled daughter’s educational rights to a New Jersey court failed in their appeal of summary judgment, dismissal and attorney fees rulings, with a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel finding their arguments and appeals untimely and forfeited.

  • March 07, 2025

    Judge: Insurer Timely Filed Motion For Attorney Fees In Hurricane Sally Suit

    PENSACOLA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida granted a commercial property insurer’s motion for attorney fees after granting its motion for summary judgment in a coverage dispute arising from Hurricane Sally property damage, rejecting the insured’s argument that the motion for attorney fees was untimely.

  • March 07, 2025

    Idaho Supreme Court: Neither Parent Due Appeal Fees In Child Support Case

    BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Supreme Court said neither parent in a child support case is entitled to attorney fees on appeal but said the father is due appellate costs under state court rules.

  • March 07, 2025

    Final Judgment Entered For $27.5 Million Thomson Reuters Data-Selling Settlement

    SAN FRANCISCO — One week after a California federal judge granted final approval to a $27.5 million settlement of a class action over Thomson Reuters Corp.’s online gathering and sale of personally identifying information (PII) of Californians, he issued final judgment in the four-year-old suit, dismissing unjust enrichment and unfair competition claims against the company.

  • March 07, 2025

    5th Circuit Affirms Refusal To Impose Statutory ERISA Penalty In Plan Documents Row

    NEW ORLEANS — In an unpublished March 6 per curiam opinion saying in part that the appellant didn’t “establish that the district court abused its discretion in” determinations made following a bench trial, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed discovery and other rulings for the sponsor and administrator of an Employee Retirement Income Security Act medical benefits plan in a documents dispute.

  • March 07, 2025

    Disability Claimant Awarded $241K In Attorney Fees Based On Success On Appeal

    PITTSBURGH — A disability claimant is entitled to attorney fees of $241,746 and costs of $8,277, a Pennsylvania federal judge said after determining that the claimant achieved success on the merits of his claim based on the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision to vacate a summary judgment ruling in favor of the disability plan.

  • March 07, 2025

    Nevada Supreme Court Tosses $200,000 Quantum Meruit Fee, Lowers To $33,811

    CARSON CITY, Nev. — After twice vacating a $200,000 quantum meruit fee for a law firm discharged by its client, the Nevada Supreme Court used the parties’ arguments and concluded that the law firm should receive only $38,811.

  • March 07, 2025

    Final Approval Of $9.8M Settlement Granted In Apparel Company Stock Drop Suit

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval to a settlement of a class action brought by investors against executives of apparel company Sequential Brands Group Inc. and the company’s auditing company, with the company executives agreeing to pay $6.25 million and the auditing company agreeing to pay $3.5 million.  The investors alleged the defendants made false and misleading statements regarding the company’s financial well-being, which the investors alleged caused the company’s stock price to drop.

  • March 06, 2025

    Final Approval Of Settlement Granted In Case Against Seller Of BPDN Investments

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York granted final approval to a $6.2 million settlement between a company that sells borrower payment dependent notes (BPDN) investments and the investors who sued it for allegedly intentionally and negligently misleading investors about those investments, causing the investors to suffer significant losses.

  • March 05, 2025

    11th Circuit Transfers GEICO Attorney Fee Motion To District Court In Fraud Suit

    ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted a motion filed by GEICO to transfer its motion for appellate attorney fees to a district court that entered a $690,251.44 judgment for the insurer in its suit against a health care clinic and related parties for allegedly submitting fraudulent no-fault insurance charges.

  • March 05, 2025

    $9.5 Million Settlement Of Payroll Firm Data Breach Suit Gets Final Approval

    LOS ANGELES — Six months after a $9.5 million settlement of privacy and unfair competition claims over a payroll services provider’s 2023 data breach was preliminarily approved, a California judge gave the final stamp of approval to the agreement, also granting the plaintiffs’ motion for attorney fees, costs and class representative service awards.

  • March 04, 2025

    8th Circuit Affirms Rulings For Former Exec In ERISA ‘Top Hat’ Plan Case

    ST. LOUIS — Saying that “[c]ontracts may refer to something that is non-existent without posing an interpretive problem,” an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a judgment ordering payment of nearly $5 million in deferred compensation benefits and $19,177.50 in attorney fees plus interest in a dispute over a “top hat” plan.

  • March 04, 2025

    Home Health Company Seeks Attorney Fees For Grappling With Fake AI Cites

    ORLANDO, Fla. — A defendant home health services provider asks a federal judge in Florida for attorney fees and other sanctions after pro se plaintiffs filed a brief opposing a motion to dismiss that allegedly contained fake case citations and that “appears on its face to have been generated by an artificial intelligence (AI).”

  • March 03, 2025

    $21 Million Settlement Of Suit Over Brokerage Firm’s Data Breach Gets Final OK

    CHICAGO — The same day that she presided over a fairness hearing for a proposed $21 million settlement of negligence, contractual and statutory claims over a 2020 data breach experienced by Arthur J. Gallagher Co. (AJG), an Illinois federal judge granted final approval to it, dismissing the case with prejudice.

  • March 03, 2025

    Multiemployer Funds Tell U.S. High Court No Circuit Splits Exist In Fee Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the Feb. 28 brief arguing that “there are no circuit splits on the applicable law, and . . . the lower court properly applied settled law,” multiemployer funds urge the U.S. Supreme Court to deny review of an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that affirmed judgment for them concerning attorney fees and timeliness in a Miller Act case.

  • March 03, 2025

    $8.35M Global Deal Proposed In ERISA Case Over Alleged Cost-Shifting

    ASHEVILLE, N.C. — After nearly a decade of litigation, an Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action over an alleged cost-shifting scheme concerning  health plan administrative fees for chiropractic and physical therapy treatment would be resolved in a deal that includes gross amounts of $4.8 million for members of individual and plan classes and a separate $3.55 million for attorney fees and costs under a proposal that the named plaintiff asked a North Carolina federal court to grant preliminary approval.

  • February 28, 2025

    9th Circuit Reverses, Remands $800,000 Fee Award For $950,000 Class Settlement

    SAN FRANCISCO —  A panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court’s approval of $800,000 in attorney fees and costs for a claims-made data breach class settlement that had a redemption value of “at most” about $950,000, but a panel majority approved the underlying settlement with a dissenting judge calling the trial court’s approval “perfunctory.”

  • February 28, 2025

    Class Representative In Oil, Gas Royalty Settlement Opposes Attorney Fee Challenge

    DENVER — Parties objecting to the more than $17.3 million in attorney fees awarded as part of a $52 million oil and gas royalty settlement have failed to show that final approval was granted in error, the class representative, Chieftain Royalty Co., argues in an appellee brief filed in the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • February 26, 2025

    Attorneys Get A Third Of $7.1M Settlement Of Class Action Over ESOP Deal

    EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An Illinois federal judge on Feb. 25 granted final approval to a $7.1 million class settlement resolving a suit over 2012 and 2013 employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) deals, awarding the requested 33% attorney fees that total $2,366,666.67 in the case where the plaintiffs said the lodestar based on their counsel’s “reasonable hourly rate” was more than $6.8 million.

  • February 26, 2025

    Federal Judge: Musician Owes More Than $286K In Fees In Rap Copyright Battle

    NEW YORK — A musician who sued rapper Donald Glover, who performs as Childish Gambino, and multiple related entities for allegedly copying one of his songs in the 2018 hit “This Is America” owes more than $286,000 in attorney fees, a federal judge in New York ruled.

  • February 26, 2025

    4th Circuit Approves Attorney Fees After Not Reviewing Black Lung Benefits Case

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals approved an award of $6,200 in attorney fees to a former employee of a coal mine operator for whom an administrative law judge (ALJ) issued an order requiring the operator to pay black lung benefits to him.

  • February 25, 2025

    Split U.S. High Court: No Attorney Fees For Preliminary Injunctive Relief

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Parties who won preliminary injunctive relief before a case was mooted due to a change in the law are not “‘prevailing part[ies]’” eligible for attorney fees under 42 U.S. Code Section 1988(b) as they have not been “grant[ed] enduring relief on the merits that alters the legal relationship between the parties,” a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled Feb. 25 in a putative class case over a now-repealed Virginia statute regarding automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for failure to pay certain court fines and fees.

  • February 24, 2025

    Supreme Court Won’t Hear DISH’s Patent Dispute Attorney Fees Arguments

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 24 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari from DISH Network LLC, leaving in place a decision from the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to deny the company’s bid for attorney fees in a patent dispute that spanned a federal court and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

  • February 24, 2025

    Default Judgment Entered Against Employer In Suit Over COBRA Notice

    SAN DIEGO — Ruling in part that “failure to provide proper COBRA [Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act] notice and its misrepresentations to Plaintiff [was] the actual and proximate cause of Plaintiff’s injuries,” a California federal judge entered default judgment against an employer on negligence and negligent misrepresentation claims, awarding the plaintiff nearly $500,000 in compensatory damages plus interest and costs but denying attorney fees.

  • February 21, 2025

    9th Circuit Affirms Attorney Fees For Employees Sued In Trade Secret Misuse Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — After affirming a summary judgment order more than three years earlier, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an Arizona federal judge’s order granting attorney fees to former employees of a financial retirement company who were sued for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets and confidential information, finding that the claims arose out of a contract between the employees and the company.