Judge Approves Final Settlement in Silicon Valley Wage Case
September 03 2015 - 2:00PM
Dow Jones News
After four years, 36,215 billable attorney hours and 3.2 million
pages of legal documents, a closely watched Silicon Valley
class-action case is over.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh gave final approval Wednesday to a
$415 million settlement between Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel
Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc., and nearly 65,000 current and former
tech workers. Judge Koh also awarded the workers' attorneys only
half of what they requested in legal fees, bumping up the amount
awarded to the workers by about $700 each.
The workers first sued the tech giants in 2011, alleging that
the companies suppressed wages from 2005 to 2009 by conspiring not
to hire each other's employees.
Legal filings in the case revealed emails between tech titans
such as the late Apple founder Steve Jobs and former Google chief
Eric Schmidt, in which they discussed the recruiting of each
other's employees. Those emails, including one in which Mr. Jobs
responded to news of a Google recruiter's firing with a smiley
face, provided popcorn-munching drama in Silicon Valley.
Judge Koh, in San Jose, Calif., kicked back a $324.5 million
settlement in August 2014 after one of the named class members
denounced it and hired a new attorney. Judge Koh told the two sides
to increase the settlement, and in January 2015 gave preliminary
approval to the new figure.
In another filing Wednesday, Judge Koh lopped attorney fees in
half, awarding $40.8 million instead of the requested total of
$85.6 million. The decision followed an odd feud among the workers'
attorneys in which one firm accused another of unreliable billing
practices.
Judge Koh said that while the thousands of billable hours and
millions of pages of legal documents the class counsel went through
were significant, the legal fees she awarded were more appropriate.
The companies' attorneys went through their own hours and
documents, so the totals for both sides of the case were even more.
In cutting the fees in half, the judge noted she was raising the
average recovery for the 64,410 class members by nearly $700 to
roughly $5,770 a person.
Lawyers for both sides in the case didn't immediately respond to
requests for comment.
Daniel Girard, who represented Michael Devine, the class member
who protested the initial settlement, said in an email that "we are
pleased that the court approved the settlement."
Write to Jeff Elder at jeff.elder@wsj.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 03, 2015 13:45 ET (17:45 GMT)
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