Shady, Shady, the Sequel

Lofton v. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, No. A146282 (D1d3 Sept. 28, 2018)

Four years ago, the First District upheld a preliminary injunction against a Law Firm, preventing it from using a shady settlement tactic to obtain fees from a class action settlement outside the judicially supervised case by bringing, and allegedly settling a parallel individual case in a different jurisdiction. On remand, and after further development of the record on just how deceptive the Firm’s tactics were, the trial court found that the $6 million obtained from the individual settlement should have rightly been part of the common fund settlement to benefit the class. And on top of that, Law Firm wasn’t entitled to receive any fees and it had to pay the class back for incentive awards paid to three individual clients. The Court of Appeal affirms. And then it orders its opinion to be sent to the state bar.

Affirmed.