In re Ins. Brokerage Antitrust Litigation
| Decision Date | 08 September 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 07-3042.,No. 07-3041.,No. 07-3687.,No. 07-1793.,No. 07-2935.,No. 07-1826.,No. 07-2957.,No. 07-1779,,No. 07-3040.,No. 07-3038.,No. 07-1786.,No. 07-3039.,No. 07-1759.,No. 07-1763.,No. 07-3037.,No. 07-1796.,No. 07-1769.,07-1759.,07-1763.,07-1769.,07-1779,,07-1786.,07-1793.,07-1796.,07-1826.,07-2935.,07-2957.,07-3037.,07-3038.,07-3039.,07-3040.,07-3041.,07-3042.,07-3687. |
| Citation | 579 F.3d 241 |
| Parties | In re INSURANCE BROKERAGE ANTITRUST LITIGATION (MDL No. 1663). Shapiro & Lodwick Co. LPA, Sports & Spine Physical Therapy Inc., Irene Pekoe, Hoffman Legal Group, LLC, Lacy Redd and Cross & Sir, Objectors, Appellants, No. 07-1759. Romero General Construction Corporation, Objector, Appellant, No. 07-1763. Dan C.D. Sturdevant, Objector, Appellant, No. 07-1769. Van Enterprises, Inc., Objector, Appellant, No. 07-1779. Class Members Iaad O Inc., Trustee of 8 Pacific Street Trust and Zorkess LLC, Appellants, No. 07-1786. Emerald Financial Group, Inc., Objector, Appellant, No. 07-1793. Palomar Grading and Paving, Inc., Objector, Appellant, No. 07-1796. Harold Folsom Jensen, Objector, Appellant, No. 07-1826. Van Enterprises, Inc., Objector, Appellant, No. 07-2935. Class Members Iaad O Inc., Trustee of 8 Pacific Street Trust and Zorkess LLC, Appellants, No. 07-2957. Shapiro & Lodwick Co. LPA, and Sports & Spine Physical Therapy, Inc., Appellants, No. 07-3037. Lacy Redd and Cross & Sir, Appellants, No. 07-3038. Irene Pekoe and Hoffman Legal Group, LLC, Appellants, No. 07-3039. Romero General Construction Corp., Appellant, No. 07-3040. Emerald Financial Group, Inc., Palomar Grading and Paving, Inc., and Harold Folsom Jensen, Appellants, No. 07-3041. Dan C.D. Sturdevant, Appellant, No. 07-3042. Van Enterprises, Inc., Appellant, No. 07-3687. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Before: SCIRICA, Chief Judge, FISHER and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges.
At issue in this consolidated appeal are the standards a district court applies when deciding whether to certify a settlement-only class, approve a class settlement, and approve class counsel's petition for attorneys' fees. More specifically, we are presented with challenges to the District Court's orders granting final approval of a $121,800,000 settlement and a $28,000,000 settlement, as well as to the District Court's order approving an award of $29,500,000 for attorneys' fees and expenses in conjunction with the larger of the two settlements. Appellants are members of the settlement class in one or both of the settlements who objected to various aspects of the settlement agreements prior to the District Court granting final approval of those agreements. Appellees are the settling parties, consisting of the plaintiffs, settling defendants, and intervenor attorneys general in one settlement, and the plaintiffs and settling defendants in the other settlement. Because we conclude that the class certification requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and (b) were satisfied with respect to both settlement classes and that both settlements were fair under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e), we will affirm the District Court's orders granting final approval of both settlements. We will also affirm the District Court's order granting attorneys' fees because we conclude that the District Court acted within its discretion in awarding a reasonable fee.
The origins of this case date back to October 2004 when the New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, filed a civil complaint against the insurance broker Marsh & McLennan (Marsh) in New York state court, alleging that Marsh had solicited fixed bids from insurance companies and had then received improper payments for directing customers to those companies. In November 2004, a multi-state group consisting of twelve attorneys general and several state insurance departments began investigating the alleged bid rigging and steering activities of brokers and insurers in the property and casualty insurance industry. Private parties commenced numerous putative class actions in federal courts across the country as well.
On February 17, 2005, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated these private civil actions from multiple jurisdictions under 28 U.S.C. § 1407 and transferred the cases to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey for pretrial proceedings.1 In re Ins. Brokerage Antitrust Litig., 360 F.Supp.2d 1371 (2005). The plaintiffs claimed a vast conspiracy between some of the nation's largest insurance brokers (the Broker Defendants) and insurance carriers (the Insurer Defendants) involving bid rigging and allocating or steering customers to defeat competition in the insurance market in exchange for high brokerage commissions. The District Court initially severed the various actions and realigned them into two consolidated dockets—one consolidated case pertaining to property and casualty commercial insurance (the Commercial Case) and the other consolidated case pertaining to employee benefits insurance (the Employee Benefits Case). See In re Ins. Brokerage Antitrust Litig., 2006 WL 2850607, at *2 (D.N.J. Oct.3, 2006).
The plaintiffs in the Commercial Case are a proposed class of businesses, individuals, and public entities who, between August 26, 1994 and September 1, 2005, engaged the services of the Broker Defendants to obtain advice with respect to the procurement or renewal of commercial property and casualty insurance and entered into or renewed an insurance policy with the Insurer Defendants. The plaintiffs in the Employee Benefits Case are both employers who utilized the services of the Broker Defendants to obtain group insurance coverage from the Insurer Defendants for their employees as part of their employee benefits plans and employees who obtained insurance from the Insurer Defendants through their employers' benefits plans.
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