Consumer Law

Court to Greenmailers: Drop Dead

By Stephen Gardner

by Stephen Gardner

A bane of honest class action lawyers (and there are plenty of them, the vast majority) is the creature that I call a greenmailer -- a lawyer who objects to a good class action settlement only in hopes of getting some fees out of it, without a care for improving the settlement itself. (Some call these weasels "professional objectors," but I don't like that term because it suggests that outfits such as Public Citizen are "unprofessional" objectors. Quite the opposite, in fact.)

Today we see a federal court opinion that warms our hearts and brings goofy grins to our faces.

U.S. District Judge James M. Rosenbaum issued an order denying objectors' request for fees. In addition to being a substantively excellent decision, it is also one of the most entertaining and readable opinions to emit from the judiciary in some time.

You know it's not going to go well for objectors when the opinion starts out, "The remoras are loose again."

And it gets worse from there. (A personal note: While on a fishing boat, I saw a pelican that had lit on the transom of the boat in search of nibble -- because pelicans will eat damn near anything -- grab a remora that the captain had tossed to it, but immediately spit it out. Now, I'm not saying that a pelican would spit out these lawyers as well, although it's worth noting that it's possible.)

The Judge, in an "egregious paraphrase of Winston S. Churchill," noted that, "Seldom in the field of securities litigation was so little owed by so many to so few."

He goes on. Noting that the objector-remoras' request for fees was "a pleading which may charitably be described as disingenuous," the Judge found it "preposterous that any legitimate lawyer would charge $74,500 to prepare an eight-page submission, and submit it tardy to boot."

As the Judge also noted, "Objectors' request and their motion ill-befit attorneys admitted to the bar."

It ended no better for the objector-remoras than it began, with the Judge concluding that they "are entitled to an award equal to their contribution . . . nothing."

May it displease the Court, huh?

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on September 04, 2009 (boomark / email).