KANSAS CITY – A federal judge has awarded attorney fees in a class action that settled for $2.7 million in January against Dish Network over its cancellation of regional sports programming of FOX Network packages in October 2010.
U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey found that the "lodestar" method of determining fees to be appropriate in the case originally brought by Michael Padberg in 2011 – with an amount of fees exceeding the total settlement fund. A lodestar method calculates attorney's fees by hours worked times a reasonable hourly rate.
"Class counsel’s lodestar is more than $3 million, with an additional $711,278.16 in previously incurred costs and expenses, exclusive of the settlement administration costs and expenses," Laughrey held.
"The court agrees that class counsel have vigorously and zealously advocated on behalf of Plaintiff Padberg and the class members for years and, as plaintiff notes, did so on a purely contingent fee basis with no guarantee that their efforts would ever result in a fee," she wrote.
Laughrey noted the case had been heavily litigated since early 2011, which included a weeklong trial in Jefferson City, post-trial motions and hearings for a new trial and reconsideration of the order granting a new trial, motions to decertify the class, and revisit prior evidentiary motions, among other things.
For his service as class representative, Padberg was awarded $15,000, the ruling states.
"Although the requested award is on the higher end of the spectrum, courts in the Eighth Circuit 'regularly grant service awards of $10,000 or greater,'" Laughrey wrote.
According to background information in the original complaint, after plaintiffs had paid for the programming, DISH had dropped the service, but refused to provide any refund, rebate or reimbursement.
In response, DISH had claimed that its contracts with customers allowed it to drop or delete programming without notifying customers and without reimbursing them.
"DISH claims, further, that, under these contracts, DISH’s customers are required to continue to pay DISH monthly premiums for the deleted programming and may not cancel their contracts without the payment of hefty cancellation fees to DISH," the complaint states.