Class Actions Brief Blog

A good while ago, we reported in this space, about so-called “cy pres” settlements. We highlighted the Chief Justice’s cautionary comments about this practice – under which third parties, not class members, are compensated by defendants. See Marek v. Lane, 134 S.Ct. 8 (2013). After the Ninth Circuit recently approved a cy pres settlement, In Re Google Referrer Header Privacy Litigat., 869 F.3d 737 (9th Cir. 2017), which awarded plaintiffs’ counsel $3.5 million, and six nonprofits/educational institutions another $5.3 million – all while awarding class members the proverbial goose egg – two objectors filed a cert petition. The objectors are backed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Class Action Fairness. The case, which grew out of a challenge to Google’s transmission of a user’s search terms through a “referral header,” proved beneficial for the alma maters of class counsel, which received nearly half of the settlement fund. That proved too much for one of the judges on the Ninth Circuit, who commented in dissent on the “unseemly occurrence of cy pres funds being doled out to interested parties’ alma maters,” here Stanford, Harvard and Chicago-Kent College of Law.

The Center for Class Action Fairness argues the case “presents an ideal and timely opportunity for the Court to resolve a deep circuit split over the use of cy pres awards in class action settlements and provide much-needed guidance to the lower courts on a recurring issue of substantial importance.” The petition argues that, absent resolution of this issue by the Supreme Court, counsel will “flock[] to the Ninth Circuit” to achieve “collusive settlements.” Specifically, the Center argues, that – under the Ninth Circuit decision – only cy pres settlements will occur in consumer class actions because it will not be “feasible” under the Ninth Circuit’s standard to compensate all consumers in a large class action. The Center is unsparing in its advocacy, arguing that “[t]he availability of cy pres relief only accentuates the[] pathologies of the class action procedure that provide substantial benefits to defendants and class counsel, at the expense of class members.”

It is unclear whether this will be one of the few petitions acted upon by the Court during this term, and there is no shortage of issues which need nationwide judicial resolution. But when the litigants don’t receive a dime, have to release their claims, and the only persons who benefit are lawyers and their favorite law schools, something seems awry. Stay tuned.