The Center for Class Action Fairness this week filed a brief with the Ninth Circuit to void yet another class action lawsuit settlement in which the supposed victims get zilch and the lawyers get rich.
In this case, trial lawyers filed 26 class action suits against the makers of wireless "Bluetooth" headphones, arguing that the companies failed to disclose the risk of hearing loss from extended use of the products at a high volume. It was similar to another class action against Apple over use of its popular iPod, which was dismissed since the plaintiffs couldn't demonstrate they had suffered any loss.
But in this case, the manufacturers thought it cheaper to settle. The class received nothing, the representative plaintiffs got up to $12,000, four favored non-profits that had nothing to do with the case received a total of $100,000, and the companies agreed to add even more lawyered language in their product guides about how you shouldn't listen to sounds with the volume cranked up for an extended period.
The lawyers? They got $800,000, plus $50,000 in costs.
Dozens of class members objected, but the federal district court approved the settlement anyway.
As CCAF stated in its brief, "The putative class attorneys have brought either (1) a meritorious case that is being settled for an infinitesimal fraction of the case's real value in a 'sellout' of the attorneys' and class representatives' fiduciary duties to the class, or (2) a meritless lawsuit where the 'class device had been used to obtain leverage for one person's benefit.'...the court should reverse and remand, with instructions to reject the settlement and provide a clear command to district courts to provide searching scrutiny of class action settlements to fulfill their fiduciary duty to absent class members."