McKenzie v. Federal Express Corp.
United States District Court for the Central District of California
2012 WL 2930201 (2012)
- Written by Angela Patrick, JD
Facts
Jackson Hanson, LLP represented LaMecia McKenzie (plaintiff) in a class action against Federal Express Corporation (FedEx) (defendant). The lawsuit alleged that FedEx had failed to list all required information on its employees’ paystubs in violation of state wage-and-hour law. Several legal issues in the case were unclear, including whether the case could proceed as a class action. The parties litigated the matter for two years before settling for $8.25 million. Most of the $8.25 million common fund was to be used to pay (1) $5.3 million to the class members, applying a formula that provided an average payment of $372 per member, and (2) $2.75 million, or 33.3 percent of the fund, to Jackson Hanson for its attorney’s fees. Any money left in the common fund would either be given to charity or distributed among the class members as extra payments. Jackson Hanson had spent approximately 1,000–1,100 hours on the case. The typical hourly rate for comparable attorney work was $550 to $600 per hour. Several years earlier, another employment case had settled for approximately $200 million; this case had changed personnel policies in significant ways across the country and resulted in a 28 percent recovery for the class attorneys. Jackson Hanson moved to have the court award fees of 33.3 percent of the common fund, as proposed in the settlement agreement.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Feess, J.)
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