Verardo v. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:22-cv-01714
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Verardo v. Progressive, Judge Schofield granted fees in part, reimbursed expenses, and granted service awards in part and denied them in part.
Class Counsel, the seven representative plaintiffs, and the settlement class are affected. Class Counsel receives $13,440,000 in fees and $342,766.26 in expenses; the representative plaintiffs receive the reduced service awards; and the payments come from the settlement fund on the timelines specified by the court.
What happened
In Verardo v. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, the court considered Class Counsel’s request for payment after approving a class-action settlement. Counsel requested $16 million in fees, $342,766.26 in expenses, and $10,000 for each of seven representative plaintiffs.
The court granted the fee request in part, awarding $13.44 million, and ordered reimbursement of all requested litigation expenses. It granted and denied the service-award request in part, awarding each representative $3,000 plus specific lost wages and costs, for a total of $28,300.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield found the fee award reasonable based on the case’s complexity, risk, work performed, and recovery for the class. She found the requested $10,000 service awards excessive and ordered that the fees and awards be paid from the settlement fund on the timelines stated in the order.
The detailed version
- Verardo v. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company · No. 1:22-cv-01714
- Lorna Schofield
- June 2, 2025
Background
The court had held a final approval hearing on March 5, 2025, and had approved the class-action settlement by an order dated March 7, 2025. This later order addressed Class Counsel’s petition for attorneys’ fees, litigation expenses, and service awards for the seven representative plaintiffs.
Class Counsel requested $16,000,000 in attorneys’ fees, $342,766.26 in litigation expenses, and $10,000 in service awards for each representative plaintiff. The settlement provided class members with a recovery equal to 69% of the total potential compensatory damages payable to them proportionally, without requiring a claims process.
Attorneys’ Fees
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(h), the court granted the fee petition in part and awarded Class Counsel $13,440,000. The court applied factors concerning the time and labor spent, the litigation’s magnitude and complexity, the risks of the case, the quality of representation, the fee’s relationship to the settlement, and public-policy considerations.
The court used approximately 25% as a benchmark based on empirical data from comparable class-action settlements. Class Counsel had requested a fee equal to 33% of the settlement, but the court found that a 28% fee was appropriate. It cited counsel’s significant work, the case’s novel and relatively untested liability theory, litigation through every stage except trial, and the substantial recovery secured for the class. The court also considered a lodestar cross-check, which compares the fee award with reasonable hours multiplied by reasonable hourly rates. The submitted evidence produced a lodestar of $5,485,782.25, and the $13,440,000 award produced a multiplier of 2.45. The court found that multiplier high but within the range of reasonable multipliers.
Litigation Expenses
The court ordered that Class Counsel be reimbursed $342,766.26 for expenses that it found were reasonably incurred in litigating and resolving the lawsuit. The expenses are to be paid from the settlement fund and may be paid immediately.
Service Awards
The court granted in part and denied in part the request for service awards. It awarded each representative plaintiff $3,000 plus the lost wages and out-of-pocket costs supported for that plaintiff, for a total of $28,300:
- John Plotts: $3,900 - Kevin Lukasik: $3,400 - Lorenzo Costa: $5,750 - Lori Lippa: $3,350 - Michael Verardo: $3,900 - Zachary Goodier: $5,000 - James England: $3,000
The court found no special circumstances or unusual risks from serving as a plaintiff against a car insurer. Although the representatives spent approximately 50 to 90 hours each on the case and participated in litigation activities, their nearly identical declarations did not provide enough individualized detail to support larger awards. The court also found that $10,000 awards would be excessive because they would be 28 times the average class member’s recovery.
Disposition
Judge Lorna G. Schofield ordered that the $13,440,000 in attorneys’ fees be paid from the settlement fund after class members received the first distribution of their cash awards. The service awards are also to be paid from the settlement fund, but not until a majority of class members have received their cash awards.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.