Reena Frailich v. Sandra Disner

These thirteen consolidated appeals brought by class counsel and six groups of objectors (collectively, “Objectors”) challenge the district court’s decisions regarding attorney fee awards after the settlement of an antitrust class action against West Publishing Corp. and Kaplan, Inc. In this opinion, we address nine separate appeals, which challenge the propriety of the district court’s decision to deny attorneys’ fees to class counsel McGuireWoods on account of a conflict of interest and to deny fees to objectors for their efforts in securing that decision. Because the district court’s decisions were not legally erroneous, and in light of the deference we give to such determinations, we affirm the respective fee orders with the exception of the order denying fees to the Schneider Objectors, which we vacate and remand for further proceedings consistent with this decision.

I

This case is before us for the second time. See Rodriguez v. W. Publ’g Corp. (Rodriguez I), 563 F.3d 948 (9th Cir.2009). Because the facts are laid out at length in that opinion, we describe them only briefly.

A

At the onset of litigation, the law firm of Van Etten Suzumoto & Becket LLP (which…