708 Fed.Appx. 894 (9th Cir. 2017), 16-15534, In re MGM Mirage Securities Litigation

• Citation: 708 Fed.Appx. 894
• Party Name: IN RE: MGM MIRAGE SECURITIES LITIGATION, Luzerne County Retirement System; Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement; Arkansas Teacher Retirement System; Stichting Pensioenfonds Metaal en Techniek, Lead Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Nickolas A. Kacprowski, Objector-Appellant, v. MGM Mirage, aka MGM Resorts International; James J. ...
• Attorney: Jeffrey John Angelovich,nix, Patterson & Roach, LLP, Austin, TX, Gregory M. Castaldo, Esquire, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP, Radnor, PA, Eli R. Greenstein, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP, San Francisco, CA, Ellen Gusikoff Stewart, Steven Francis Hubachek, Esquire, Robbins Geller Rudman ...
• Judge Panel: Before: SCHROEDER and TALLMAN, Circuit Judges, and WHALEY, Senior District Judge.
• Case Date: September 15, 2017
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 894

708 Fed.Appx. 894 (9th Cir. 2017)

IN RE: MGM MIRAGE SECURITIES LITIGATION, Luzerne County Retirement System; Philadelphia Board of Pensions and Retirement; Arkansas Teacher Retirement System; Stichting Pensioenfonds Metaal en Techniek, Lead Plaintiffs, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

Nickolas A. Kacprowski, Objector-Appellant,

v.

MGM Mirage, aka MGM Resorts International; James J. Murren; Daniel J. D’Arrigo; Robert C. Baldwin; Deborah Hower Lanni, Co-Executor of the Estate of J. Terrence Lanni, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16-15534

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

September 15, 2017

Submitted September 13, 2017 ^[*] San Francisco, California

Editorial Note:

Governing the citation to unpublished opinions please refer to federal rules of appellate procedure rule 32.1. See also U.S.Ct. of App. 9th Cir. Rule 36-3.

Page 895

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada, Gloria M. Navarro, Chief Judge, Presiding, D.C. No. 2:09-cv-01558-GMN-VCF

Jeffrey John Angelovich,nix, Patterson & Roach, LLP, Austin, TX, Gregory M. Castaldo, Esquire, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP, Radnor, PA, Eli R. Greenstein, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP, San Francisco, CA, Ellen Gusikoff Stewart, Steven Francis Hubachek, Esquire, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, SAN DIEGO, CA, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Paul D. Alston, Esquire, Michelle Comeau, Esquire, Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing, Honolulu, HI, for Objector-Appellant.

George Michael Garvey, Esquire, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, Los Angeles, CA, William Karr Briggs, David Siegel, Glenn Vanzura, Irell & Manella LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: SCHROEDER and TALLMAN, Circuit Judges, and WHALEY,^[**] Senior District Judge.

Page 896

MEMORANDUM^[***]

Objector Nickolas Kacprowski appeals the district court’s approval of a $75 million settlement in a securities fraud class action related to a construction on the Las Vegas strip. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

1. Kacprowski has standing to appeal the issues raised because he timely objected to the approval of the settlement, see Churchill Vill., LLC v. Gen. Elec., 361 F.3d 566, 572-73 (9th Cir. 2004), and we examine the settlement taken as a whole, rather than its individual component parts, for overall fairness, Hanlon v. Chrysler Corp., 150 F.3d 1011, 1026 (9th Cir. 1998).¹

2. The extensive notice efforts here satisfied the requirements of due process and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(c)(2). See Torrisi v. Tucson Elec. Power Co., 8 F.3d 1370, 1374 (9th Cir. 1993). The claims administrator, Gilardi & Co. LLC, mailed over 200,000 notices of the proposed settlement to potential class members, including 252 institutions holding securities for the benefit of their clients (i.e., nominee holders), approximately 4,200 financial institutions registered with the SEC, and 456 institutions that monitor securities class actions for their investor clients and regularly act on their behalf. Before mailing notices, Gilardi checked the potential class members’ names and addresses against the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address database to identify any address changes. And, it re-mailed notices returned as undeliverable after investigating the potential class members’ alternative or updated address information using private databases and address locator services.

Gilardi also published the settlement notice in the national edition of Investor’s Business Daily, over a national newswire service, PR Newswire, and on the Depository Trust Company’s Legal Notice System, and it established and actively maintained a settlement-specific website (www.mgmmiragesecuritieslitigation.com ). Lastly, the parties sought and obtained a continuance of the settlement hearing and an extension of the deadlines to permit more time for absent class members to receive notice, opt out, object, and submit their claims.² We conclude that these procedures gave sufficient time and adequate notice "to all class members whose names and addresses may be ascertained through reasonable effort," Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 173, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974), and provided "the best practicable notice under the circumstances," Silber v. Mabon, 18 F.3d 1449, 1454...