Galloway v. The Kansas City Landsmen, LLC, No. 15-1629 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CasePlaintiffs filed suit alleging that 21 Budget rental car businesses willfully violated the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), 15 U.S.C. 1681c(g)(1), by issuing receipts that contained more than five digits of customers’ credit card numbers. The parties subsequently mediated and agreed on a proposed settlement. The settlement provided that each class member would receive a certificate worth $10 off any car rental or $30 off a rental over $150, with no holiday blackout days. Applying the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1712(a)-(c), the district court awarded $23,137.46 in attorneys’ fees and costs, and a $1,000 class representative incentive fee. Plaintiffs appealed. The court concluded that the district court erred by following the In re HP Inkjet Printer Litig. mandatory approach in applying section 1712(a)-(c) without explicitly stating that the award was based on an exercise of the district court’s discretion to determine a reasonable attorney’s fee. But plaintiffs do not argue the award was a breach of the district court’s discretion, and if the court remanded, it would be for an explicit exercise of that discretion, applying the principles of section 1712(a)-(c). The court determined that any award greater than $17,438.45 would be unreasonable in light of class counsel’s limited success in obtaining value for the class. Accordingly, the court concluded that any error was harmless and affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Loken, Author, with Riley, Chief Judge, and Benton, Circuit Judge] Civil case - Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. This class action was settled by the issuance of coupons and the award of attorneys' fees was governed by the provisions of Section 1712 of the Act; while the district court erred by following the Ninth Circuit's case of In re HP Inkjet Priner Litig., 716 F.3d 1173 (9th Cir. 2013), which follows a mandatory approach in applying Section 1712(a)-(c), without explicitly stating that the award of attorneys' fees was based on an exercise of the court's discretion to determine a reasonable attorney fee, the plaintiffs do not argue that the award was an abuse of the court's discretion; the Court's own review of the record establishes that any award greater than that made would be unreasonable in light of class counsel's success in obtaining value for the class and any error the district court may have made is harmless.
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