An attorney for objectors to a settlement between a class of current and former California Pizza Kitchen employees and the restaurant chain over a data breach told a Ninth Circuit panel on Monday that the district court did not properly scrutinize the deal or allegations of collusion between the parties.
The objectors’ attorney, Theodore Walter Maya of Ahdoot & Wolfson PC, told the panel that the deal is worth far less than the $3.7 million valuation assigned by California Pizza Kitchen and the settling plaintiffs.
Problems with the settlement include exorbitant attorney fees for the class counsel, and that U.S. District Judge David O. Carter’s orders approving the deal did not address the collusion allegations raised by the objectors even though the judge said on the record that he was troubled by them, Maya argued.
Judge Carter “never explained in the final order and judgment or in any of the transcripts why we shouldn’t be concerned by these signs of collusion,” Maya said.
Maya appeared to find at least one judge receptive to some of his arguments, as U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel P. Collins said several times that Judge Carter’s approval of the settlement looked like a “rubber stamp,” and that despite raising concerns during the proceedings about collusion, he never explained away those concerns in the written record.
