Background

• Beginning in 1998, class actions under the Fair Credit Reporting Act were filed against Trans Union over selling consumer data to advertisers.
• Cases consolidated in the Northern District of Illinois and settled for $75 million plus nonpecuniary relief, with later satellite litigation over attorneys' fees.
• The present appeals involve a district court order approving settlements between Trans Union and Texas state-court claimants and allowing reimbursement of Watts Guerra Craft’s fees from the class settlement fund.
• Watts Guerra Craft represented individual claimants; its fees are to be paid from the fund, not by Trans Union separately.
• Watts did not create the fund, did not seek district-court intervention, and seeks to be added as an appellee to protect its fee interests; class counsel seeks to challenge Watts’s entitlement.
• The Seventh Circuit grants Watts’s motion to be added as a party to the appeal, allowing consideration of whether Watts’s fee rights should be limited by class-plaintiff interests.

Issues

Key Cases Cited

• Devlin v. Scardelletti, 536 U.S. 1 (U.S. 2002) (nonparties can participate in appeals when rights likely to be determined)
• Toon v. Wackenhut Corrections Corp., 250 F.3d 950 (5th Cir. 2001) (court scrutiny of contingent attorneys’ fee contracts in settlement approvals)
• In re A.H. Robins Co., 86 F.3d 364 (4th Cir. 1996) (review of settlements and fees in complex actions)
• Garrick v. Weaver, 888 F.2d 687 (10th Cir. 1989) (fee considerations in settlements)
• SEC v. Enterprise Trust Co., 559 F.3d 649 (7th Cir. 2009) (nonparty participation in proceedings relevant to appeals)
• SEC v. Forex Asset Management LLC, 242 F.3d 325 (5th Cir. 2001) (nonparty rights in securities-related proceedings)