Shiyang Huang v. Equifax Inc., No. 20-10249 (11th Cir. 2021)
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This appeal arose out of the 2017 data privacy breach of Equifax and its affiliates. Plaintiffs and Equifax eventually settled their dispute, the district court approved the settlement, certified the settlement class, awarded attorney's fees and expenses, and approved incentive awards for the class representatives. Several of the objectors appealed.
After establishing jurisdiction, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's rulings in full, with the exception of the incentive awards for the class representatives, which the court reversed and remanded. In this case, after awarding attorney's fees and expenses to plaintiffs' counsel, the district court approved incentive awards for the class representatives in order to compensate them for their services and the risks they incurred on behalf of the class. However, in Johnson v. NPAS Sols., LLC, 975 F.3d 1244, 1260 (11th Cir. 2020), a panel of this court held that incentive awards for class representatives are prohibited. On remand, the court instructed the district court to vacate the incentive award and to otherwise leave the settlement agreement intact.
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