Judge Avern Cohn of the Central District of California approved a wage and hour class settlement in Cicero v. DirecTV, Inc., 2010 WL 2991486 (C.D. Cal. July 27, 2010) (not reported). Judge Cohn approved a payout fund to class members of $4,385,000, a 30% attorney fee award of $1,950,000 to class counsel, and incentive awards of $7,500 and $5,000 the representative plaintiffs.
The class action claimed violations of California’s wage and hour laws. The named plaintiffs are former satellite television installation and service technicians who brought this case individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated current and former satellite installation and/or service technicians against their former employers Mountain Center, Inc., and Ironwood Communications Inc. (currently DirecTV, Inc. doing business as DirecTV Home Services, collectively “Defendant”) for allegedly violating California’s labor and unfair competition laws. Named Plaintiffs alleged that Defendant violated applicable provisions of the Industrial Welfare Commission’s (“the IWC”) Wage Orders, the Labor Code, and the Business and Professions Code by: (1) failing to provide employees duty-free meal periods; (2) failing to reimburse employees for tools necessary to the performance of the employees’ work; (3) failing to pay wages for all hours worked, including hours worked in excess of eight per day and forty per week; (4) failing to pay all wages owed employees upon termination of the employment relationship; and (5) failing to provide accurate wage statements.
The parties engaged in two mediations of the matter before the Hon. William Cahill (Ret.) in March, 2009, and subsequently before the Hon. Diane Wayne (Ret.).
The Court approved the attorneys’ fees request, which represented 30% of the total gross settlement amount. The Court noted that:
California recognizes the common fund doctrine for the award of attorneys’ fees. Under California and Ninth Circuit precedent, a court has discretion to calculate and award attorneys’ fees using either the lodestar method or the percentage-of-the-fund method. Wersha v. Apple Computer, Inc., 91 Cal.App. 4th 224, 253 (2001); Vizcaino v. Microsoft Corp., 290 F.3d 1043 (9th Cir.2002). The Court, in its discretion, finds that the percentage method is a fair, reasonable, and appropriate method for awarding attorneys’ fees in this case. . . .
Overall, although this percentage is slightly higher than the 25% benchmark for fees in class action cases, it is consistent with other wage and hour class actions where the recovery is less than $10 million. Moreover, there have been no objections to the amount of attorneys’ fees. The Court therefore finds that the amount of attorneys’ fees is warranted by the complexity of the case and Class Counsel’s dedication of extraordinary time and resources to the prosecution of this claim.
Id. **6-7.
By CHARLES H. JUNG
CALIFORNIA CLASS ACTION LAW 