![]() 20-2168.NEW YORK and BOSTON, Ma(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Sanford Heisler Sharp announced today that Public Justice is joining as co-counsel in its ongoing litigation against Harvard University and the President and Fellows of Harvard College. The majority's holding, he wrote, could encourage plaintiffs' lawyers to attempt to extract exorbitant fees from defendants, knowing they can settle for the lodestar amount if a judge rules against them. The circuit court sent the case back to Wilson to reconsider Sanford's fee request.Ĭircuit Judge Steven Colloton in dissent said there was no point in calculating the lodestar once Wilson reasonably concluded that the lawyers had engaged in conduct "that is a stain on our system." Wilson should have employed the lodestar method, in which the number of hours worked is multiplied by the prevailing hourly rate, wrote Circuit Judge Lavenski Smith, joined by Circuit Judge Ralph Erickson. The plaintiffs appealed, and the 8th Circuit on Wednesday agreed that Wilson erred by not first calculating what a reasonable fee award would have been absent any unprofessional conduct. and the attempted extortion of $96,000 in unearned fees by negotiating contrary to Barbee.” The judge then awarded Sanford $1 in fees, citing the firm's “incorrigible practices. The plaintiffs then re-submitted only the wage settlement, which Wilson approved. Big River Steel LLC, which said judges must ensure there was no conflict of interest between attorneys and their clients before approving FLSA settlements. Wilson cited a 2019 8th Circuit decision in Barbee v. But Wilson again turned them away, finding that the wage claim had not been negotiated separately from the fees. The parties proposed a new settlement in March 2020 that included $269,000 in payouts to class members and $96,000 in fees. ![]() District Judge Billy Roy Wilson rejected the deal, saying he could not determine its reasonableness without knowing how many individuals were in each of the two opt-in classes and without access to Sanford's billing records and contingency-fee agreements with class members. The parties in 2019 proposed a settlement worth at least $211,000, along with $89,000 in fees. Settlement talks began not long after Sanford filed the 2018 class action against Welspun. Josh Sanford of Sanford Law Firm, who represents the plaintiffs, did not immediately have comment on the decision. Lawyers at Cross, Gunter, Witherspoon & Galchus who represent Arkansas-based Welspun did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the FLSA, the merits of a settlement must be negotiated separately from attorney fees in order to prevent the creation of a conflict of interest between lawyers and their clients. The ruling came in a lawsuit accusing manufacturer Welspun Pipes Inc of violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act by rounding down employees' hours when it paid them. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in a 2-1 decision said the Arkansas federal judge should have first calculated a reasonable fee award for the lawyers at Sanford Law Firm in Little Rock, and only then lowered it to reflect what he said was their "attempted extortion of unearned fees." ![]() appeals court ruled on Wednesday.Īn 8th U.S. ![]() (Reuters) - A judge's award of $1 in fees to the plaintiffs' lawyers in a wage-and-hour case that settled for $270,000 was not justified despite their unprofessional conduct in negotiating the merits of the settlement and their fees simultaneously, a U.S.
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