NEW YORK CITY – Louis Burke, the American Bar Association’s expert on class actions, said he has never seen anything like the 25.8 percent charge for expenses in a settlement between Monsanto and plaintiffs in a pollution suit.
“That’s a high percentage,” he said on Nov. 9.
Burke said he recently settled a class action for $2.3 billion, where expenses were $30 million, or 1.3 percent of the settlement.
On a percentage basis, expenses in the Monsanto case were 20 times as great.
Burke said, “That is an unusual order.”
No such order exists, at least not in public record, because St. Clair County Chief Judge Andrew Gleeson sealed all records of the settlement.
Legal journals abound with information on fees in class actions and mass actions like the Monsanto case, but the journals offer precious little about expenses.
The American Bar Association designated Burke as their source on the subject.