Details at the Point of Law blog. I'm sorry, as well as angry.
Update: I won't be filing an appeal, though my clients are of course free to find an attorney willing to do that for them.
I won't personally be filing a malpractice action, but I'm happy to consult with an attorney who is considering doing so if a class member finds one.
Update 2: Please don't email me asking for individual legal advice about what you can or should do with your computer, or what other legal options you may pursue. I don't have the resources to provide free advice to a million different class members beyond my five clients. You'll need to consult with your own attorney. I'm rooting for someone to bring a malpractice suit, but I'm not advising you one way or the other on that, either as a class action or as a small-claims case against Milberg.
I will note that I believe that, because NVIDIA failed to provide a computer of "like or similar kind" as the settlement notice promised, and because Judge Ware failed to enforce the settlement as written and noticed to the class (his opinion mistakenly says that the CQ-56 was "designated in the settlement"), the class notice is constitutionally invalid and cannot be considered to bind absent class members besides my five clients who got a ruling from Judge Ware. Someone who sues HP and/or NVIDIA in small-claims court and persuades the judge that the class notice does not bind them could possibly recover cash in small-claims court. Of course, HP and NVIDIA will argue that the notice was constitutionally valid and that the small-claims court does not have jurisdiction, so I am not giving you legal advice to pursue your claim in small-claims court; you could win, you could lose. Check with a lawyer.
Showing posts with label Milberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Milberg. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Reply brief in Bachman v. A.G. Edwards coupon settlement appeal
Milberg and several other law firms collected $21 million in quick-pay fees for a Missouri state-court class action settlement that provided face value of $39 million to the class, most of which was in $8.22 coupons. The Center for Class Action Fairness appealed the rubber-stamp approval, and, on Friday, filed a reply brief in the case. Oral argument is set for May 4 in St. Louis.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
NVIDIA hearing held March 28
As I discussed on our Facebook page yesterday, I wasn't given our full ten minutes to argue in the hearing, while Milberg and NVIDIA took well over ten minutes each to argue against the motion. This could mean Judge Ware didn't care what I had to say, or it could mean that he wanted to give the other side the chance to exhaust every argument before ruling against them, or it could mean nothing at all or anything in between. The judge acknowledged the difference between a 17-inch screen and the smaller replacement computer screen. Judge Ware said he'd review the technical reports, so it seems that it will come down to which experts he believes. Will the judge see that Nader Bagherzadeh's conclusions are dishonestly inconsistent with his own data or that Jon Peddie applied the wrong legal standard and contradicted his non-litigation positions? I don't know, and I don't know when the judge will rule. I have one case in Chicago where we've been waiting since October for a ruling, and a recent case in New Jersey where a ruling came in less than 24 hours.
Update: Court rules for NVIDIA. If you're a class member with questions about the case, and why your attorneys argued against your own recovery, you need to talk to your attorneys at Milberg; I cannot help you.
Update: Court rules for NVIDIA. If you're a class member with questions about the case, and why your attorneys argued against your own recovery, you need to talk to your attorneys at Milberg; I cannot help you.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Reply brief filed in NVIDIA case
Our earlier post continues to update the docket, most notably with our reply brief filed today.
It's hard to believe that multiple millionaire lawyers from multiple law firms all asked the court to apply the wrong legal standard for deciding a dispute over a consent decree accidentally. I'll take it as a good sign that they didn't think they could win if the court applied the correct legal standard and that their only hope was to obfuscate. It is of some concern that lawyers think they can obfuscate like that and get away with it without getting sanctioned.
What is most remarkable is the shamelessness of the contrasting claims by NVIDIA and Milberg. When asking the court to disregard objections to the settlement, the settling parties argued that there would be hundreds of thousands of claims worth at least tens (and probably hundreds) of millions of dollars. (Milberg actually argued that there would be "exponentially" more than hundreds of thousands of claims, but I presume that was because they don't know what "exponentially" means rather than because they were arguing that there would be tens of billions of claims.)
But push has come to shove, and only 30 thousand class members have taken the preliminary steps of asking for relief—and the Settling Parties have the gall to argue that this response rate (which will correspond to less than $10 million of class benefit, less than the $13 million attorney fee) demonstrates the popularity of the settlement administration, because one couldn't reasonably expect any more claims than that. We didn't even ask for those numbers: NVIDIA shamelessly volunteered them as evidence of the success of the settlement.
This case is a poster child for why courts should not award attorneys' fees until after the claims period has ended. If we hadn't intervened in this case, no one would have ever disclosed that Milberg exaggerated class recovery twenty- to fifty-fold, and this would be recorded in some empirical study as evidence of attorneys generously restricting themselves to fees of less than 10% of class recovery, rather than 130% of class recovery.
Update: Court rules for NVIDIA. If you're a class member with questions about the case, and why your attorneys argued against your own recovery, you need to talk to your attorneys at Milberg; I cannot help you.
It's hard to believe that multiple millionaire lawyers from multiple law firms all asked the court to apply the wrong legal standard for deciding a dispute over a consent decree accidentally. I'll take it as a good sign that they didn't think they could win if the court applied the correct legal standard and that their only hope was to obfuscate. It is of some concern that lawyers think they can obfuscate like that and get away with it without getting sanctioned.
What is most remarkable is the shamelessness of the contrasting claims by NVIDIA and Milberg. When asking the court to disregard objections to the settlement, the settling parties argued that there would be hundreds of thousands of claims worth at least tens (and probably hundreds) of millions of dollars. (Milberg actually argued that there would be "exponentially" more than hundreds of thousands of claims, but I presume that was because they don't know what "exponentially" means rather than because they were arguing that there would be tens of billions of claims.)
But push has come to shove, and only 30 thousand class members have taken the preliminary steps of asking for relief—and the Settling Parties have the gall to argue that this response rate (which will correspond to less than $10 million of class benefit, less than the $13 million attorney fee) demonstrates the popularity of the settlement administration, because one couldn't reasonably expect any more claims than that. We didn't even ask for those numbers: NVIDIA shamelessly volunteered them as evidence of the success of the settlement.
This case is a poster child for why courts should not award attorneys' fees until after the claims period has ended. If we hadn't intervened in this case, no one would have ever disclosed that Milberg exaggerated class recovery twenty- to fifty-fold, and this would be recorded in some empirical study as evidence of attorneys generously restricting themselves to fees of less than 10% of class recovery, rather than 130% of class recovery.
Update: Court rules for NVIDIA. If you're a class member with questions about the case, and why your attorneys argued against your own recovery, you need to talk to your attorneys at Milberg; I cannot help you.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
NVIDIA class action settlement: Milberg declares war on its clients
If there was ever any question of whether Milberg was going to side with its putative clients or its putative adversary, we now have an answer from this Litigation Daily story (behind a subscription wall, but now available for free):
1. Millions of HP owners were subject to the settlement; "thousands have already submitted claims." Or, in other words, less than 1% of the class has submitted claims. And that's aside from the fact that "submitting a claim" doesn't indicate approval of the settlement administration, just an understanding that half a loaf is better than none. All of my clients have "submitted claims"; none are happy with the settlement.
2. In case it wasn't clear from my briefs, I fully support "consumers [getting] their computers replaced." One can readily look at my proposed order, and see that I am not trying to "stop[] the settlement from proceeding." There is already an existing court order for the settlement to proceed, and no one has moved to stay that order.
3. I've heard of spin, but it's remarkable that demanding that consumers get what their attorneys promised them in a class action settlement and notice is considered "an anti-consumer agenda." To review: it's the tort reform advocate who has filed papers with the court asking for consumers to get what they were promised; it's the trial lawyers who have announced their intent to file papers with the Court siding with the defendant and alleged wrongdoer insisting that the consumers—their clients—get less than what the Court has already ordered.
Leading tech blog Engadget caught wind of our motion:
Update: Court rules for NVIDIA. If you're a class member with questions about the case, and why your attorneys argued against your own recovery, you need to talk to your attorneys at Milberg; I cannot help you.
Lead class counsel Jeff Westerman of Milberg said in a statement that Frank is "working against the interests of consumers who deserve to get their computers replaced."Three obvious points:
"This settlement is providing class members with repairs and replacement computers, and thousands have already submitted claims," Westerman said in the statement. "When it comes to the replacement computers, we hired an independent expert who confirmed that we were adhering to the terms of the settlement. [Frank's] claims to the contrary reveal an anti-consumer agenda aimed at stopping the settlement from proceeding."
1. Millions of HP owners were subject to the settlement; "thousands have already submitted claims." Or, in other words, less than 1% of the class has submitted claims. And that's aside from the fact that "submitting a claim" doesn't indicate approval of the settlement administration, just an understanding that half a loaf is better than none. All of my clients have "submitted claims"; none are happy with the settlement.
2. In case it wasn't clear from my briefs, I fully support "consumers [getting] their computers replaced." One can readily look at my proposed order, and see that I am not trying to "stop[] the settlement from proceeding." There is already an existing court order for the settlement to proceed, and no one has moved to stay that order.
3. I've heard of spin, but it's remarkable that demanding that consumers get what their attorneys promised them in a class action settlement and notice is considered "an anti-consumer agenda." To review: it's the tort reform advocate who has filed papers with the court asking for consumers to get what they were promised; it's the trial lawyers who have announced their intent to file papers with the Court siding with the defendant and alleged wrongdoer insisting that the consumers—their clients—get less than what the Court has already ordered.
Leading tech blog Engadget caught wind of our motion:
Ted Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness says that NVIDIA has no business passing off cheap laptops, and we think he might have a case -- after all, the judge ordered that NVIDIA provide "a replacement computer of like or similar kind and equal or similar value," and it doesn't take a lawyer to see that the $400 [sic] Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX that the company's offering doesn't come close to compensating owners of faulty machines. We joked that you might be better off selling your old laptop for parts on eBay, and that might not be far from the truth.So did leading law blog Above the Law.
Update: Court rules for NVIDIA. If you're a class member with questions about the case, and why your attorneys argued against your own recovery, you need to talk to your attorneys at Milberg; I cannot help you.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Friday, June 25, 2010
Good reporting, bad reporting
Compare and contrast the excellent analysis of Forbes.com's Dan Fisher with the shallow softball St. Louis Business Journal on the A.G. Edwards case—though the latter coaxes from Robert Blitz of Blitz Bardgett and Deutsch an admission that his lawsuit would have been deemed meritless if it had been in federal court.
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