ROBERT POWERS; PETER J. FRANKLIN; SEA BREEZE PRINTING, INC.; GARVIN D. STANISLAWSKI; STARLOG GROUP, INC. AND STARLOG GROUP, INC. DEFINED PENSION PLAN, ON BEHALF OF THEMSELVES AND ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED; HOWARD SOBEL; RICHARD STRAUSZ; RICHARD W. HALSEY, Plaintiffs-Appellees, WILFRED GEORGE, Class Member/Objector-Appellant, v. PAUL EICHEN; ROBERT JOHNSON; KENNETH E. OLSON; FREDERICK PARKER; MICHAEL TAMKIN; MICHAEL VOGT; DENNIS A. WHITTLER; MARY ZOELLER; ARTHUR MINICH; JOHN M. SEIBER; JOHN THOMAS; JEFFREY NASH; PROXIMA CORPORATION; JOHN E. REHFELD; CHARLES S. CHESTNUTT, Defendants., 229 F.3d 1249

Summary

Appellant unnamed class member, who failed to intervene in the proceedings below, challenged the trial court's order awarding attorneys' fee to class counsel in the amount of 30 percent of the settlement. The appellate court held that because appellant filed an objection to the fee request in the trial court pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, he had standing to pursue the appeal. Although the trial court properly calculated the attorneys' fees as a percentage of the gross settlement amount, it did not adequately explain the basis for the award because it did not explain how the different considerations involved in determining a reasonable fee were to weighed. Thus, the appellate court vacated the order awarding fees to class counsel and remanded the case to the trial court. On remand, the trial court had the discretion to calculate the fee award using the gross settlement amount because 15 U.S.C.S. § 78u-4(a)(6) of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act did not eliminate the use of ...