Filed May 27, 2015
[B]ut without somefairly definite information as to the hours devoted to various general activities, e.g., pretrial discovery, settlement negotiations, and the hours spent by various Classes ofattorneys, e.g., senior partners, junior partners, associates, the court cannot know the nature of the services for which compensation is sought. Lindy Bros., supra, 487 F.2d at 167. Generalized descriptions of the work are useless for the purpose of detecting padding.
Filed November 12, 2015
(f) Class Counsel's Answer Brief acknowledges the significance ofLindy Bros., supra, and Grinnell, supra, as relevant to common fund fee awards, but their position in this case contradicts those cases. Lealao states: [W]hose 1973 opinion in Lindy J, supra, 487 F.2d 161, which was relied upon in Serrano IIT (20 Cal.3d at p. 49, fn. 23)... Lealao, supra, 82 Cal.App.4th at 28. Similarly, in Lindy Bros., the Third Circuit initially set forth the lodestar method as the means to determine reasonable attorneys' fees.
Filed August 26, 2015
(AOBat 7) (quoting Serrano III, 20 Cal.3d at 48 n.23). The support for the “starting point” language is based on two authorities: City ofDetroit v. Grinnell Corp., 495 F.2d 448 (2d Cir. 1974) and Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. ofPhiladelphia v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir. 1973). These authorities, however, have been undermined by the same courts that issued them.
Filed December 10, 2007
Builders, Inc. of Philadelphia v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F. 2d 161, 168 (3d Cir. 1973), vacated on other grounds, 540 F.2d 102 (3d Cir. 1976): No one expects a lawyer whose compensation is contingent upon his success to charge, when successful, as little as he would charge a client who in advance had agreed to pay for his services, regardless of success. 487 F. 2d at 168. The Third Circuit has recognized that multipliers “‘ranging from one to four are frequently awarded in common fund cases when the lodestar method is applied.
Filed August 31, 2015
Under the lodestar method, the court must engage in a two- step analysis: first, to determine the lodestar, the court multiplies the number of hours each attorney spent on the case by each attorney’s reasonable hourly rate; and second, the court adjusts that lodestar figure (by applying a multiplier) to reflect such factors as the risk and contingent nature of the litigation, the result obtained and the quality of the attorney’s work. See, e.g., Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161, 167-69 (3d Cir. 1973), subsequently refined in Lindy Bros. Builders v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 540 F.2d 102, 116-18 (3d Cir. 1976) (en banc).
Filed June 1, 2015
In Lindy, the court noted that “the only information furnished to the district judge regarding the time spent by [fee petitioners] was that they had spent ‘in excess of 6,000 hours in connection with this litigation.’ This information was insufficient to support the award of fees . . . .” 487 F.2d at 167 (citation omitted). It was this complete lack of specificity that led the Third Circuit to require “some fairly definite information as to the hours devoted to various general activities,” id., a requirement that was adopted by the D.C. Circuit.
Filed February 5, 2015
The lodestar concept originally was based in the theory of quantum meruit— the value of the benefit conferred. Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161, 167 (3d Cir. 1973) (first case discussing lodestar and pointing out that it must be based on benefit conferred). This foundation has not changed over the decades; the lodestar method remains rooted in Case 2:13-ml-02424-GW-FFM Document 397 Filed 02/05/15 Page 21 of 31 Page ID #:8397 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 -16- Case No. 2:13-ML-02424-GW DEFENDANTS’ OPPOSITION TO THE KRAUTH/HASPER PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS’ FEES the Court’s “objective determination of the value of the attorney’s services,” as the cases counsel cite also show.
Filed January 22, 2015
4. Perhaps the most important fact demonstrating that Class Counsel's argumentis baselessis that the SerranoIII decisionrelies upon two federal cases, City ofDetroit v. Grinnell Corp., et al., supra, (an antitrust class action), and Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. ofPhila. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., et al., 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir. Oct. 31, 1973), which indeed award reasonable attorneys’ fees under the common fund doctrine. In each, the court ruled that the fee to be awarded from a settlement fund (15% of the $10 million settlement recovery was awardedbythe district court in Grinnell) must be calculated under the lodestar method, and in each case, the appellate court decision specifically rejected the percentage-of-the- recovery method!
Filed August 4, 2014
Under the lodestar method, a court must engage in a two-step analysis: first, to determine the lodestar, the court multiplies the number of hours each attorney spent on the case by each attorney’s reasonable hourly rate; Case 1:13-cv-10764-DPW Document 81 Filed 08/04/14 Page 40 of 48 32 and second, the court adjusts that lodestar figure (by applying a multiplier) to reflect such factors as the risk and contingent nature of the litigation, the result obtained and the quality of the attorney’s work. See, e.g., Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161, 167-69 (3d Cir. 1973), subsequently refined in Lindy Bros. Builders v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 540 F.2d 102, 116-18 (3d Cir. 1976) (en banc).
Filed June 7, 2013
67 multiplier). Case 1:08-cv-09522-SHS Document 159 Filed 06/07/13 Page 16 of 35 11 Builders, Inc. v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161, 167-69 (3d Cir. 1973), subsequently refined in Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. Am. Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 540 F.2d 102, 116-18 (3d Cir. 1976) (en banc).