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In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 District court may limit intervenors' participation in class action to privilege of appealing Nos. 00–3164, 00–3183, 00–3262, 00–3285, 00– 3290 to 00–3293, 00–3302, 00–3303, 01–2000. | Argued April 20, 2001. | Decided Aug. 31, 2001.
Class of consumers and class of health insurers brought action against pharmaceutical company, alleging that company contingent on success of appeal from order misled physicians about bioequivalence of cheaper drugs to denying intervention to those who object to company's drug for treatment of hypothyroidism. Plaintiffs settlement, putative intervenors should file and defendant sought approval of proposed settlement, two notices of appeal, one from denial of objectors moved to intervene to object to settlement, intervention, and second springing or contingent plaintiffs' attorneys sought fees, and health insurers sought incentive awards. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, J., denied motion to intervene, approved settlement, awarded fees in reduced amount, and denied incentive awards. On appeal, the Court of Appeals, , Circuit Judge, held that: (1) objectors were entitled to intervene; (2) settlement was fair; (3) district court was required to estimate market rate for fees; Contingent notice of appeal from final judgment and (4) insurers were not entitled to incentive awards.
embodying settlement of class action against Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
class members who objected to settlement, but were denied right to intervene in action, became effective on Court of Appeals' reversal of district court's order denying intervention, and thus issue of adequacy of settlement was properly before Court of Appeals, without necessity of remand to Status as party to class action is condition to District courts must freely allow intervention of company's drug for treatment of hypothyroidism, unnamed class members who object to proposed under which company agreed to pay $88 million settlements and want option to appeal adverse to consumers and $46 million to health insurers, was fair in light of difficulties facing class in proving that company knew cheaper drugs were bioequivalent; while clinical study by physician 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 drugs were bioequivalent, other studies showed they were not, United States Food and Drug Administration had not declared cheaper drugs bioequivalent, and medical association treated Incentive awards to health insurers which joined class action against pharmaceutical company were not warranted, since health insurers joined in action only after it was certain there would be Unless class contracts privately over attorneys' fees, lawyers in class-fund cases must petition Attorneys and Law Firms
Chicago, IL, Donaldson, Guin & Slate, Attorneys for class of consumers and class Birmingham, AL, , Kohn, Swift & Graf, of health insurers, respectively, in class action Philadelphia, PA, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.
against pharmaceutical company, were entitled to fees in amount calculated according to (argued), Mayer, Brown & Platt, Chicago, market-based approach, by which district court was required to estimate terms of contract private plaintiffs would have negotiated with attorneys at outset of case, with reference to benchmarks such as actual agreements between Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker, class members and their attorneys, data from (argued), Bartlit, Beck, Herman, Palenchar & Scott, other suits, and auctions for legal services.
Bershad, Hynes & Lerach, New York, NY, for Appellants.
(argued), Bartlit, Beck, Herman, Palenchar & Scott, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs- Amount of itemization and detail required from counsel for prevailing party in request for costs is question for market; if counsel submit bills with level of detail that paying clients find satisfactory, court should not require more.
& Arthur, Washington, DC, for Amici Curiae-Appellees.
& Arthur, Washington, DC, for Amici Curiae.
*714 (argued), Bartlit, Beck, Herman,
Incentive awards to class members are justified Palenchar & Scott, Chicago, IL, for Intervenors-Appellants.
when necessary to induce individuals to become 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 of Generic and Brand-name Levothyroxine Products in the Treatment of Hypothyroidism, 277 J. Am. Medical Ass'n 1205 After the article's publication, lawyers across the country began filing class action suits. They sought relief under a variety of state and federal law theories, including antitrust, Hypothyroidism occurs when the thyroid gland fails to RICO, and state consumer-fraud statutes. These theories had produce sufficient hormones. Symptoms include fatigue, in common the contention that Knoll misled physicians into extreme sensitivity to cold, joint pains, muscle aches, keeping patients on Synthroid despite knowing (as Dong and weight gain. Left untreated, victims eventually suffer had concluded) that the physicians could have switched their hair loss, numbness in the limbs, depression, and mental patients to less costly but equally effective drugs. These confusion. For more than 40 years hormone-replacement suits were transferred to the Northern District of Illinois therapy based on levothyroxine sodium has been used to for consolidated pretrial proceedings under alleviate these symptoms. Introduced during the 1950s, Synthroid was the first orally administered levothyroxine product. This synthetic derivative of thyroxine is a “narrow . Settlement talks ensued, and in mid-1998 the parties therapeutic index” drug, meaning that dosage levels must be presented a compromise to the district judge. She rejected established for each recipient by trial and error, which may it, finding that too little discovery had been completed, that take several months. Too much or too little can cause heart, the size of the class was still *715 unknown, and that the
brain, psychological, and reproductive problems. Although insurance companies that had actually paid for much of the levothyroxine sodium is not patented and is available from many vendors, Synthroid still represents more than two- thirds of sales. Its manufacturer, keen to maintain this lead, then split the plaintiffs into two classes: one of consumers asserts that no other thyroid hormone drug is bioequivalent and the other of insurance companies (also known as third- to Synthroid and warns physicians that switching brands may cause the side effects associated with incorrect levels of After additional negotiations the parties submitted a second thyroid hormones in the blood, unless the patient goes through proposed settlement, under which Knoll and its former parent a new monitoring and calibration process.
BASF Corporation would pay approximately $88 million to consumers and $46 million to the insurance companies in If Synthroid is bioequivalent to other drugs containing exchange for a release of all claims. (Abbott Laboratories, levothyroxine, the tedious and costly calibration step can which purchased BASF's pharmaceutical business in March be omitted, and its less-expensive rivals would be likely 2001, is not a party to the suit.) The district court to claim a greater share of the market. In 1990 Betty J.
rejected motions to intervene filed by several dissatisfied Dong, a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, concluded that Synthroid and The court then awarded attorneys' fees from its rivals are interchangeable. To publish a paper based on these common funds at a level significantly below what the the data collected in her study, Dong needed the permission of Knoll Pharmaceuticals, Synthroid's owner at the time.
Knoll's predecessor Flint Laboratories had financed Dong's We deal first with the proposed intervention.
work under condition that she secure its approval before The objectors, who call the settlement a sell-out, wanted to making any public disclosures. Knoll objected to publication, intervene so that they could obtain appellate review of any asserting that it found Dong's work methodologically sub- decision approving the deal. Status as a party is a condition to par. The conclusions nonetheless found their way to the press after Dong decided to dishonor the promises she had made to Flint. See Editorial: Thyroid Storm, 277 J. Am. Medical Ass'n affirmed by an equally divided Court under 1238 (1997). Embarrassed by the accusation of covering up unfavorable information, Knoll permitted Dong to release the study. It was published as Dong, et al., Bioequivalence . The district judge's order approving the class-fund 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 settlement devoted one sentence to intervention: “All pending kick in if they are successful on the first. The approach is That's all she said, either orally or in writing. This decision, which puts the objectors behind the eight ball, is impossible and has been obvious to class members in other cases. See district courts freely allow the intervention of unnamed class a contingent appeal and called the approach of Blair and members who object to proposed settlements and want an Cusack nonsensical. Why they spent time and money arguing option to appeal an adverse decision.” See the point rather than filing a precautionary springing notice of appeal from the final judgment is puzzling. After oral argument, however, the objectors took our advice. They filed a contingent notice of appeal with the district court. With The district judge may have worried that, if she today's decision that notice springs into effect (it is timely allowed intervention, objectors would enter the case and, as parties, block the settlement by withholding agreement to its the objectors have not been entitled to appeal) and brings the terms. But as Crawford observed that worry is insubstantial; district court's approval of the settlement before us.
a judge can solve the problem by limiting intervenors to the privilege of appealing. For this limited-purpose intervention, Although officially in the game, the objectors have it is irrelevant whether the class members come in under not presented any objection to the settlement that was not Rule 24(a) (intervention as of right) or Rule 24(b) (permissive convincingly addressed by the district court. The objectors contend that the settlement should have been larger, that the notice was not sufficient, and that the release of liabilities is District judges are not entitled to block appellate review of too broad. Yet it seems to us, as it did to the district judge, that their decisions by the expedient of denying party status to the settlement is generous in light of the difficulties facing the anyone who seems likely to appeal, as the district judge class. Knoll owned the Dong study and cannot be required apparently tried to do in this case. Crawford's requirement to pay damages for exercising its contractual rights. It might that “district courts freely allow the intervention of class be held liable for fraud, if Dong's work proved to Knoll's members who object to proposed settlements” means that the satisfaction that Synthroid and other drugs are bioequivalent, intervenors must be given their say in this case. We reverse and Knoll then tried to bamboozle the public by maintaining the district court and grant the objecting class members a the opposite of what it knew to be the truth. But it would be hard to say that the study compelled Knoll to tell the public that levothyroxine products are interchangeable; other Whether we can do anything for the intervenors works in the medical literature reach a contrary conclusion.
now that they are parties is the next question. The intervenors The Food and Drug Administration, which has been asked appealed from the district court's denial of their motions to repeatedly to declare that at least some other levothyroxine intervene, but not from the final judgment embodying the medications are bioequivalent to Synthroid, has not done so in settlement. *716 A decision reversing an order denying
the four years since the Dong study's publication. (The FDA's intervention usually leads to a remand, not to a decision Approved Drug Products with Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations does not list any hypothyroid medications as . Yet there would be nothing to do on remand therapeutically interchangeable.) Nor do physicians act as if here; the settlement's approval ended the case. No further they accept Dong's conclusions. The American Association appealable judgment could be entered, so the objecting class of Clinical Endocrinologists recommends that patients not members seem to be out of luck. This problem has a ready switch brands, and that, if they do switch, the dosage level be recalibrated. See Clinical Practice Guidelines for Evaluation and Treatment of Hyperthyroidism and Hypothyroidism, that, when a substantive appeal is contingent on the success of available at www.aace.com/clin/guides/thyroid_guide.html.
the intervention appeal, they should file two notices of appeal: Synthroid's sales are up. Although its share has dropped from one from the denial of intervention and a second springing 71% to 64% since Dong's study appeared, the market is or contingent appeal from the final judgment—which will growing, for all the data reveal the entire drop in market 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 share may have been from new patients starting on different companies' lawyers request $10 million, approximately 22% medications. Add to this the difficulty of proving damages of the insurers' fund. As the district judge saw it: when many of the consumers do not bear the full expense of *717 the drugs (and often do not purchase them directly),
and the plaintiffs would have had a headache trying to get law prohibits price fixing suits by indirect purchasers of a pursue direct litigation against tobacco companies accused compared to the size of the settlement.
of suppressing research on the health effects of cigarettes because the injuries are too remote, the chain of causation more” constitute “megafunds,” she continued. Following the is too long, and the damages “wickedly hard” to calculate); approach of decisions in the Northern District of Georgia, the Southern District of Texas, and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the judge concluded that “fees in the range of 6–10% and even lower” are common in megafund cases.
Unlike members of the consumer class, TPPs are “[W]hen the figures hit the really big time,” she said, larger sophisticated purchasers of pharmaceuticals. Their consent fees constitute a windfall. Stating that “class counsel ha[d] to this deal shows that a larger judgment was unlikely.
done a fine job in terms of a speedy and professional The objectors maintain that the consumers should have resolution of a major class action”, the judge awarded 10% of received a larger piece of the pie, but this is implausible.
The settlement forecloses all subrogation rights the TPPs would have held against any consumer. Had the TPPs *718 The judge did not explain why she decided to follow
held back and sued in subrogation, they might well have decisions of district courts in other jurisdictions, rather than taken almost the entire fund. Except for uninsured persons decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the and Medicare patients without separate prescription drug Seventh Circuit. For the approach that these districts take, and coverage (who must pay for their own pills), most persons' that our district judge followed, cannot be reconciled with expenses for Synthroid are paid by third parties. Insurance the approach our opinions adopt. We have held repeatedly generally requires consumers to provide a co-payment for that, when deciding on appropriate fee levels in common- prescriptions; this payment rises only marginally (if at all) fund cases, courts must do their best to award counsel for more expensive drugs. And hypothyroid sufferers are the market price for legal services, in light of the risk of likely to meet their deductibles whether they switch from nonpayment and the normal rate of compensation in the Synthroid or not. That the consumers received two-thirds of the settlement funds seems more like a gift (or a public relations gesture) by the TPPs rather than a reason to upset the deal. The objectors' other grounds are well covered by the district court's opinion. The judge did not abuse her discretion in approving this settlement. It is time for the plaintiffs to receive their payments and for their lawyers to be paid.
Unless a class contracts privately over attorneys' fees, (Continental I). Of these opinions only Florin II was cited lawyers in class-fund cases must petition the court for their or discussed by the district judge, and then for a question unrelated to the market rate of legal services. We have never Counsel for the consumers have asked for $26.3 suggested that a “megafund rule” trumps these market rates, million, about 29% of the consumers' recovery. The insurance or that as a matter of law no recovery can exceed 10% of a “megafund” even if counsel considering the representation 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 in a hypothetical arms' length bargain at the outset of the for riskbearing. (The greater the risk of loss, the greater the case would decline the representation if offered only that incentive compensation required.) Timing is more important than the choice between negotiation and auction, or between percentage and hourly rates, for all of these systems have The district judge defined megafunds as settlements of $75 million and up. Fees in “megafund” cases should be capped at 10% of the recovery, the judge held, although she recognized that fees of 30% and more are common and proper in smaller cases. This means that counsel for the consumer class could have received $22 million in fees had they settled for $74 Problems in Settlement, 16 J. Legal Stud. 189 (1987); Daniel million but were limited to $8.2 million in fees because they L. Rubinfeld & Suzanne Scotchmer, Contingent Fees for obtained an extra $14 million for their clients (the consumer Attorneys: An Economic Analysis, 24 RAND J. Econ. 343 fund, recall, is $88 million). Why there should be such a (1993); Terry Thomason, Are Attorneys Paid What They're notch is a mystery. Markets would not tolerate that effect; the Worth? Contingent Fees and the Settlement Process, 20 J.
district court's approach compels it. A notch could be avoided Legal Stud. 187 (1991). Only ex ante can bargaining occur if the 10% cap in “megafund” cases were applied only to in the shadow of the litigation's uncertainty; only ex ante the portion of the recovery that exceeded $74 million, but can the costs and benefits of particular systems and risk that is not what the district court did; it capped fees at 10% multipliers be assessed intelligently. Before the litigation of the whole fund. Under the court's ruling, a $40 million occurs, a judge can design a fee structure that emulates the settlement would have led to the same aggregate fees as the incentives a private client would put in place. At the same actual $132 million settlement. Private parties would never time, both counsel and class members can decide whether it contract for such an arrangement, because it would eliminate is worthwhile to proceed with that compensation system in counsel's incentive to press for more than $74 million from place. But in this case the district judge let the opportunity slip the defendants. Under the district court's approach, no sane away, turning to fees only ex post. Now the court must set a lawyer would negotiate a settlement of more than $74 million fee by approximating the terms that would have been agreed and less than $225 million; even the higher figure would make to ex ante, had negotiations occurred.
sense only if it were no more costly to obtain $225 million for the class than to garner $74 million.
The second circuit has criticized this court's market- mimicking approach on the ground that one “cannot know Having disapproved the megafund cap, we must remand precisely what fees common fund plaintiffs in an efficient —for the district judge did not attempt a market-based market for legal services would agree to”. approach, even as an alternative holding. On remand the district court must estimate the terms of the contract that “Instead,” that court “adhere[s] to [the] practice that a fee private plaintiffs would have negotiated with their lawyers, award should be assessed based on scrutiny of the unique had bargaining occurred at the outset of the case (that is, when circumstances of each case, and ‘a jealous regard to the rights the risk of loss still existed). The best time to determine this of those who are interested in the fund.’ ” We grant the rate is the beginning of the case, not the end (when hindsight premise; it is indeed impossible to know ex post the outcome alters the perception of the suit's riskiness, and sunk costs of a hypothetical bargain ex ante. But a court can learn about make it impossible for the lawyers to walk away if the fee is similar bargains. That is at least a starting point. The second too low). This is what happens in actual markets. Individual circuit's consider-everything approach, by contrast, lacks a clients and their lawyers never wait until after recovery is benchmark; a list of factors without a rule of decision is just secured to contract for fees. They strike their bargains before a chopped salad. Even Goldberger, which resorted to using work begins. Ethically lawyers must do *719 this, but the
a lodestar, had to look at the market rate for lawyers' hours.
same thing happens in markets for other professional services Determining lawyers' fees ex post is a perilous process. But with different (or no) ethical codes. Many district judges have any method other than looking to prevailing market rates begun to follow the private model by setting fee schedules assures random and potentially perverse results.
at the outset of class litigation—sometimes by auction, sometimes by negotiation, sometimes for a percentage of It is impossible to be sure what would have happened earlier, recovery, sometimes for a lodestar hourly rate and a multiplier but some guides are available: the fee contracts some TPPs 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 signed with their attorneys; data from large common-pool bid; they look for the best bid—just as any private individual cases where fees were privately negotiated; and information would do in selecting a law firm, an advertising firm, or a on class-counsel auctions, where judges have entertained bids from different attorneys seeking the right to represent a class.
with firm profiles, testimonials of former clients, predictions The first benchmark is actual agreements. Before joining the of expected recovery, fee proposals, and arguments on why class, a group of more than 100 TPPs (the “Health Benefit their firm provides good value. The judge in turn acts as an Payers,” as they call themselves) contracted with two law agent for the class, selecting the firm that seems likely to firms to represent them. Unfortunately they have not put the generate the highest recovery net of attorneys' fees. The court details in the record, but they tell us *720 that the contracts
in Wenderhold compared bids by evaluating how much the provided for a 25% contingent fee at maximum. The “Porter class would take (after attorneys' fees) at different levels of Wright Group” (18 TPPs referred to collectively by their law damages. The court then evaluated the firms' resumes and firm's name) also negotiated with and hired counsel. Their determined that the low bidder would do as good or better a setup allowed each insurance company to pick one of two fee options. Either the client paid Porter Wright's full costs and 70% of its normal hourly fees each month, with a 4% of recovery kicker at the end, or the client paid only costs Auctions are less helpful ex post, and not only because it's each month but had to pony up 15% of the final settlement.
too late to put the legal services up for bid. After settlement, Insurers are sophisticated purchasers of legal services, and we have lost all opportunity to put in place incentives for these contracts define the market. Unfortunately, though, they attorneys to secure larger awards. Courts must at this point identify a market mid-way through the case, after defendants simply determine what value the lawyers have provided.
already had agreed to pay substantial sums. The Porter Wright The judicial opinions from auction cases are helpful in contracts provide little guidance on how to compute fees for this respect, though, because they provide detailed analysis the consumer class, because none of the consumers' lawyers of the market rate for attorneys facing different levels of was paid on an ongoing basis. For these reasons the contracts risk. Forcing firms to bid at least approximates a market, are of limited utility—but they do show that even after an providing the judge with multiple options. We cannot assume initial settlement, with the TPPs' risk of loss slight, arms' that judges always select the best bid. See length bargains did not yield a “megafund cap” on fees.
A second benchmark for determining legal fees is data from securities suits where large investors have chosen to hire the attorneys with a percentage of the recovery yet capped the counsel up front. Data about these ex ante arrangements have fee award, eliminating any incentive for the lawyers to push been widely available since the changes to securities practice for a larger recovery). But a court can examine the bids and wrought by legislation in the mid-1990s. At about the same the results to see what levels of compensation attorneys are time some district judges started conducting auctions for the right to be lead counsel, and the outcome of these auctions The market rate for legal fees depends in part on the risk of nonpayment a firm agrees to bear, in part on the quality of At first thought, auctions appear to be a poor mechanism its performance, in part on the amount of work necessary to for replicating the market price of legal services. Quality resolve the litigation, and in part on the stakes of the case.
varies among lawyers, and awards net of fees could rise Both negotiations and auctions often produce diminishing with the level of fees if a higher payment attracts the best marginal fees when the recovery will not necessarily increase counsel. We never see private clients auctioning off their legal in proportion to the number of hours devoted to the case. In work to the lowest bidder. Law firms pitch their services in negotiation—competing for business by demonstrating the judge selected a bid with a declining contingent-fee scale, to potential clients that they provide quality legal work at good value. But the word “auction” is an imprecise The schedule provided for 30% of the first million, 25% of description of the process that judges have used to choose the next $4 million, then 20% of the next $10 million, and lead counsel in class actions. Judges don't look for the lowest 15% of everything above $15 million. Following settlement, 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 counsel received a total of $4.8 million, or 19.2% of the more common in private agreements (indeed they are the norm for contingent-fee contracts in tort suits). These tie the incentives of lawyers to those of the class by linking increased a structure over the fee schedule laid out by the district court in our case are apparent: in Oracle the attorneys' fees never went down for securing a larger kitty, and counsel always The record compiled in this case is limited. We know the had an incentive to seek more for their clients. See also agreements between some TPPs and their lawyers, but we also know that they entered the case only after a large kitty seemed likely. The district court's task on remand will be to gather such additional data as the parties provide and to approximate the arrangements that would have prevailed at the outset. The district judge should keep in mind that she This is not to say that systems with declining marginal separated the consumer and TPP classes. The fees of each percentages are always best. They also create declining class's group lawyers should be determined by that group's marginal returns to legal work, ensuring that at some point risk and productivity. The consumer and TPP classes were attorneys' opportunity cost will exceed the benefits of pushing rivals for a limited fund, not confederates in common cause.
for a larger recovery, even though extra work could benefit Any use of a sliding scale should be based solely on each the client. This feature exacerbates the agency costs inherent class's settlement, not the total amount recovered by the two in any percentage-of-recovery system, just as the lodestar approach creates the opposite incentive to run up the billable hours. Other options are available. Suppose that recovery is Two additional issues require only brief discussion.
certain and that the major dispute concerns its amount. A The district court declined to authorize full reimbursement fee schedule could be created that takes the base recovery for the expenses of litigation. The judge wrote that too for granted (no need to pay counsel to “produce” a recovery many claims had been lumped into broad categories, that that is there for the asking) while magnifying the incentive she was perplexed by the difference between reproduction to seek more. This was the approach of the successful bidder and copying expenses, and that travel and telephone costs were too high. She reduced the TPP counsels' request by one Counsel agreed to take no fees for the first third and consumer counsels' request by one half. Reducing $405 million recovered and 25% of everything above $405 litigation expenses because they are higher than the private million. Because the government had already established market would permit is fine; reducing them because the liability in criminal proceedings, the civil lawyers in Auction district judge thinks costs too high in general is not. See Houses concluded that the first few hundred million would come easy. Convinced that their superior skills could generate a larger-than-expected recovery, they agreed to be paid only for the upper tail of the distribution of possible recoveries. (If Likewise the amount of itemization and detail required is the expected damages were $350 million, for example, then a question for the market. If counsel submit bills with the this structure would create a very powerful incentive to do level of detail that paying clients find satisfactory, a federal well by the class; but it would be verboten under our district court should not require more. See, e.g., Bids also differ in how they compensate lawyers for their time. “Calendar-based” bids (seen in Oracle) compensate Counsel contend that their expenses and their billing lawyers for additional time spent. See also Wells Fargo and methods are normal in commercial practice. They explain Amino Acid Lysine. Others compensate based on the stage of that “copying” charges denote outside copy centers while litigation, but not the amount of time it actually *722 takes to
“reproduction” charges denote in-house copying. They say get there. We are skeptical of the calendar-based bids, because that their telephone and travel expenses are standard fare they do little to reduce agency costs and tempt lawyers to for a case of this magnitude. Our remand instructions delay settlement talks unnecessarily. Systems where fees rise regarding expenses mirror those on fees. Parties should based on the stage of litigation rather than the calendar are submit information on what expenses private clients in large 2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
In re Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d 712 (2001)
2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 the lure of an “incentive award,” there is no need for such class actions (auctions and otherwise) pay. In examining additional compensation, as the district judge recognized.
market rates the court should be careful not to pay the Many insurance companies entered this suit knowing that a attorneys twice. Some cases award large percentages of the large payment was on its way. The TPPs were “clear winners” recovery in order to cover for litigation expenses as well. If the district court selects such a fee structure, it should not argue that some of the TPPs didn't shoulder a reasonable portion of the discovery burden. To the extent one company's law firm played a larger role than others, that difference Finally, the district court awarded incentive must be accounted for in divvying up attorneys' fees. But reimbursements to named consumer class plaintiffs but not it is evident that the prospect of recovery created enough to the TPPs' representatives. The judge explained that the incentive for the representative TPPs to step up even without “cases cited by the third-party payers involve awards to an additional award for doing so. The market rate for incentive individuals who took significant risks . not to corporations reimbursements here is accordingly zero.
who will receive large recoveries in any event.” The TPP representatives appeal this decision. Incentive awards are AFFIRMED in part, VACATED in part, and REMANDED justified when necessary to induce individuals to become in part for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
We see no reason why this rationale would not Parallel Citations
apply equally to corporations and other organizations. But if at least one TPP would have stepped forward without 2001-2 Trade Cases P 73,407, 51 Fed.R.Serv.3d 736 End of Document
2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.
2013 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.

Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/files/2013/08/In-re-Synthroid-Marketing-Litigation-1.pdf