At the outset, I’ll say that this has little to do with the ARM industry, but I do know that the industry does like a good story about plaintiff’s attorneys, so that’s why I’m publishing this.
A class-action settlement in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case will see the members of the class pocket $38 each, while the attorneys representing the plaintiffs will get nearly $10 million.
The suit involves nearly 350,000 class members and is a multi-district litigation made up of 30 cases, after an alarm company was accused of making telemarketing calls in violation of the TCPA.
Six named plaintiffs would split about $115,000, while $13 million would be allocated to the class members in the $28 million settlement.
The settlement still requires final approval from a District Court judge in the Northern District of West Virginia.
From the proposed settlement that was filed last month with the court:
Plaintiffs estimate that if the Court approves the attorneys’ fees and costs, and Plaintiffs’ service awards as requested, each claimant will receive a payment of approximately $38, an amount that compares favorably with other TCPA settlements approved by courts across the country. Also significant is the limited scope of the release: under the Settlement, class members retain their rights to pursue the entities that actually placed the telemarketing calls, including Monitronics’ authorized dealers and their subcontractors.
The first case was filed nearly seven years ago after a plaintiff alleged she was contacted repeatedly by one of the defendants despite being on the Do Not Call Registry. Those 350,000 members of the class reportedly received 7,858,232 calls from the defendants.
A copy of the proposed settlement can be accessed here.
