Attys Got Lion’s Share Of HP Deal: Ink-Jet Class Members

Law 360 reports on CCAF's objection to the Hewlett-Packard Co. settlement that benefited the lawyers that negotiated it more than the class members they represented.

Members of a class action targeting Hewlett-Packard Co. over allegedly deceptive marketing for printer ink cartridges told the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday that class counsel had negotiated a settlement that improperly favored their interests over those of the class.

According to objector-appellants Kimberly Schratwieser and Theodore H. Frank, class counsel — including attorneys with Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP, Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP and Berk Law PLLC — will get $2.1 million out of the settlement, while the class will receive only coupons for HP products and injunctive relief valued by the district court at $1.5 million.

The settlement should be scrapped because the district court “failed to fully consider the hundreds of objections that the settling parties failed to disclose to the court,” the objectors said in their brief to the court.

Read the full article at Law 360.