SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court on Thursday shot down a bid to upend compensation for class action attorneys in ways that could have significantly reduced the amount of fees they receive. In a unanimous ruling by its seven justices, the court said California law permits the doling out of fees to attorneys based on a percentage of the money they recover for the class, rejecting arguments from a class action critic that fees should be tied directly to the hours put into a case.
“We clarify today that when an attorney fee is awarded out of a common fund preserved or recovered by means of litigation,” Justice Kathryn Werdegar wrote for the court, “the award is not per se unreasonable merely because it is calculated as a percentage of the common fund.”
