A California court of appeal excoriated a small plaintiffs' law firm, Graham & Martin, over settlement terms in a toxic-warnings case and overturned the $540,000 settlement, calling the firm "bounty hunters" who set up "straw plaintiffs" as a means to collect legal fees.
"The plaintiffs are rewarded for shaking down the defendants for ubiquitous trivia" while provisions of the settlement seek to preclude future enforcement by the state attorney general, according to David Sills, presiding justice for the 4th District. Instead of $540,000, "this legal work merited an award closer to $1.98," he said.
Anthony Graham of Costa Mesa, Calif., took strenuous exception to the harsh characterization. "I thought it was one of the most extraordinary, biased and superficial opinions I ever read in my career here and in the United Kingdom." He said the court ignored the four years of litigation involved.
"I am more than happy to be judged on my record. No judge I have been in front of has said anything to support what the court wrote," Graham said. "The court of appeal pretends that the global notice was a sword of litigation. It was just a tool of the settlement," he said.
Graham promised to seek depublication of the opinion and, failing that, to appeal to the California Supreme Court.
In addition to the public hiding, the appellate ruling bolstered the reach of the California attorney general to intervene in litigation involving Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, by approving the state's ability to do more than comment on settlements. It allows the state to intervene to appeal objectionable pacts.
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