Snitzer v. The Board of Trustees of the American Federation of Musicians and…
Snitzer v. The Board of Trustees of the American Federation of Musicians and Employers' Pension Fund
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:17-cv-05361
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 7
In Snitzer v. Board of Trustees, Judge Caproni granted Class Counsel’s motion and denied the Ad Hoc Objectors’ and Stoner’s motions.
Class Counsel received the additional expense award; the Ad Hoc Objectors were denied attorneys’ fees; and Martin Stoner was denied the requested changes to the judgment.
What happened
In Snitzer v. The Board of Trustees of the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund, the court had already approved a settlement and entered judgment. Class Counsel later asked to add expenses that the judgment had unintentionally left out, while the Ad Hoc Objectors and Martin Stoner separately asked to change the judgment.
The court granted Class Counsel’s motion and amended the judgment to award $805,130.07 in reasonable expenses, instead of $713,204.45. It denied the Ad Hoc Objectors’ new request for attorneys’ fees, concluding that it repeated a request the court had already rejected and that their contribution to the settlement was minimal. It also denied Stoner’s request to add provisions based on his earlier objections, the court’s recommendations, and his limited time to speak at the fairness hearing.
Judge Valerie Caproni ruled that all three requests were motions for reconsideration and that the Ad Hoc Objectors and Stoner did not satisfy the strict standard for reconsideration. The court directed the Clerk to terminate the motions at docket entries 208 and 212.
The detailed version
- Snitzer v. The Board of Trustees of the American Federation of Musicians and… · No. 1:17-cv-05361
- Valerie Caproni
- Oct. 6, 2020
Background
The court held a fairness hearing on August 26, 2020, concerning the proposed settlement. On August 28, 2020, it entered a final order approving the settlement, entering judgment, awarding attorneys’ fees, expenses, and service awards, and dismissing the matter with prejudice. The judgment awarded Class Counsel $713,204.45 in reasonable expenses, to be deducted from the gross settlement amount.
Class Counsel later moved to amend the judgment to add $91,925.62 in expenses that had been allowed but unintentionally omitted. The Ad Hoc Coalition of Objectors filed a new motion for attorneys’ fees. Martin Stoner, who was representing himself, asked the court to amend the judgment to include various provisions.
Class Counsel’s Additional-Expense Motion
The court treated Class Counsel’s request as a motion for reconsideration. Such motions generally require the moving party to identify controlling decisions or information the court overlooked. The court found that it had unintentionally omitted certain allowed expenses. It therefore granted Class Counsel’s motion to amend the judgment.
The amended judgment provides that Class Counsel receives $7,786,500 in attorneys’ fees, equal to 29% of the gross settlement amount, plus $805,130.07 in reasonable expenses, to be deducted from the gross settlement amount.
Ad Hoc Objectors’ Attorneys’ Fee Motion
The court treated the Ad Hoc Objectors’ new fee request as a motion for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and Local Civil Rule 6.3. The court explained that reconsideration is not a way to relitigate issues, present new theories, or obtain another opportunity to seek relief.
The Ad Hoc Objectors had previously requested attorneys’ fees before and during the fairness hearing, and the court had denied that request. The new motion sought $44,325 from the fees awarded to Class Counsel, after an earlier request for $132,975 based on 197 hours at $675 per hour and a $15,000 retainer.
The court denied the new motion because it repeated the earlier fee request. The court also stated that the motion would be denied on the merits even if it were procedurally proper. In the court’s view, the Ad Hoc Objectors’ changes to the settlement release were minor and did not materially improve the settlement. The court also said its recommendations concerning governance procedures were nonbinding and were not included in the judgment. Finally, it rejected the argument that giving the Neutral Independent Fiduciary a unit vote justified fees, reasoning that the proposal was based on a flawed understanding of the fund’s decision-making process.
Martin Stoner’s Request
The court treated Stoner’s request as a motion for reconsideration and denied it. It concluded that he was attempting to revisit issues he had already presented, including alleged facts and evidence concerning the trustees and their service providers. The court also found no basis to incorporate its fairness-hearing recommendations into the judgment because the recommendations were voluntary and the Fund was free not to adopt them.
The court further rejected Stoner’s objection to receiving five minutes for oral argument at the fairness hearing. It noted that he did not object at the hearing or request more time, had made a complete presentation, and was not cut off while speaking.
Disposition
The court’s final order states that Class Counsel’s motion for reconsideration was granted, the Ad Hoc Objectors’ motion for reconsideration was denied, and Stoner’s motion for reconsideration was denied. The Clerk was directed to terminate the open motions at docket entries 208 and 212.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.