Lawyers who represented Hilton Hotel employees in a class-action lawsuit over their pension plan are entitled to $21.5 million in fees, a U.S. District Court judge ruled.
The employees last year won a $140 million class action lawsuit against Hilton Corp. and its retirement savings plan over allegations the company improperly credited service time in a process known as backloading. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act contains regulations to prevent abusive forms of backloading. The practice causes plan participants to accrue benefits slowly in their first years of employment.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the U.S. District Court for D.C., ruled last week that the employees’ attorneys, led by Stephen Bruce of Stephen R. Bruce Law Offices of Washington, D.C., were entitled to 15 percent of the judgment against Hilton. The judge also awarded the attorneys $603,000 in expenses. All of the money will be paid out of the fund established to pay as many as 23,000 eligible Hilton employees.
“In light of the skill and dedication exhibited by class counsel,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion, “the substantial length and complexity of this litigation, the risks assumed by counsel, and the substantial benefits secured by counsel for the class, the court concludes that a fee of 15 percent of the common fund is fair and reasonable.”
Kollar-Kotelly also awarded a $50,000 incentive award to Jamal Kifafi, the lead plaintiff in the suit. Kifafi filed a lawsuit in 1998 and the class was certified the following year. The case was the subject of 12 rulings in various courts before being upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C. in December 2012.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
