Case Name: Tymuoi Ha, et al. v. Google Inc., et al.
Case No.: 16CV290847

This is a putative wage and hour class action by contract recruiters hired by defendant Google Inc. through staffing agencies including defendant UrpanTech. The parties have reached a settlement, which the Court preliminarily approved on June 20, 2017. Plaintiffs now move for final approval of the settlement and, separately, for approval of their attorney fees, costs, and enhancement awards. Plaintiffs’ motions are unopposed.

I. Legal Standard for Approving a Class Action Settlement

Generally, “questions whether a settlement was fair and reasonable, whether notice to the class was adequate, whether certification of the class was proper, and whether the attorney fee award was proper are matters addressed to the trial court’s broad discretion.” (Wershba v. Apple Computer, Inc. (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 224, 234-235, citing Dunk v. Ford Motor Co. (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 1794.)

In determining whether a class settlement is fair, adequate and reasonable, the trial court should consider relevant factors, such as the strength of plaintiffs’ case, the risk, expense, complexity and likely duration of further litigation, the risk of maintaining class action status through trial, the amount offered in settlement, the extent of discovery completed and the stage of the proceedings, the experience and views of counsel, the presence of a governmental participant, and the reaction of the class members to the proposed settlement.

(Wershba v. Apple Computer, Inc., supra, 91 Cal.App.4th at pp. 244-245, internal citations and quotations omitted.)

The list of factors is not exclusive and the court is free to engage in a balancing and weighing of factors depending on the circumstances of each case. (Wershba v. Apple Computer, Inc., supra, 91 Cal.App.4th at p. 245.) The court must examine the “proposed settlement agreement to the extent necessary to reach a reasoned judgment that the agreement is not the product of fraud or overreaching by, or collusion between, the negotiating parties, and that the settlement, taken as a whole, is fair, reasonable and adequate to all concerned.” (Ibid., quoting Dunk v. Ford Motor Co., supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at p. 1801, internal quotation marks omitted.)

The burden is on the proponent of the settlement to show that it is fair and reasonable. However “a presumption of fairness exists where: (1) the settlement is reached through arm’s-length bargaining; (2) investigation and discovery are sufficient to allow counsel and the court to act intelligently; (3) counsel is experienced in similar litigation; and (4) the percentage of objectors is small.”

(Wershba v. Apple Computer, Inc., supra, 91 Cal.App.4th at p. 245, citing Dunk v. Ford Motor Co., supra, 48 Cal.App.4th at p. 1802.) The presumption does not permit the Court to “give rubber-stamp approval” to a settlement; in all cases, it must “independently and objectively analyze the evidence and circumstances before it in order to determine whether the settlement is in the best interests of those whose claims will be extinguished,” based on a sufficiently developed factual record. (Kullar v. Foot Locker Retail, Inc. (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 116, 130.)

II. Terms and Administration of the Settlement

The terms of the settlement are as follows. The $5.5 million non-reversionary settlement includes a $75,000 payment to the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency associated with plaintiffs’ PAGA claim. Attorney fees of up to $1,833,333 (one-third of the gross settlement), expenses not to exceed $50,000, and administration costs estimated at $20,000 will also be paid from the gross settlement. Plaintiff Ha will petition the Court for an incentive award of $25,000, while the other named plaintiffs will seek incentive payments of $5,000 each.

The remaining net settlement of approximately $3,481,667 will be distributed to class members pro rata based on their weeks worked and billing rates during the class period, without the need for class members to submit a claim. This will result in an average recovery of $4,380 to each of the 795 estimated members of the class. Funds unclaimed after six months will be redistributed among class members who timely negotiated their payments, and any funds remaining unclaimed after this process will be paid to the Legal Aid at Work (formerly Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center) as a cy pres beneficiary.

Class members who do not opt out of the settlement will release “any and all claims arising at any point from January 27, 2012 until the Preliminary Approval Date, which arise out of the same transactions, series of connected transactions, occurrences or nucleus of operative facts that form the basis of the class claims which were pled or which could have been pled based on the factual allegations contained in the Lawsuit’s Operative Complaint,” including specified wage and hour claims.

The notice process has now been completed. There were no objections to the settlement and one request for exclusion from the class. Of 795 notice packets, 92 were re-mailed to updated addresses provided by the U.S. Postal Service or located through skip tracing and only one was ultimately undeliverable. The claims administrator estimates that the average class member payment will be $4,390, with a maximum payment of over $20,800.

At preliminary approval, the Court found that the proposed settlement provides a fair and reasonable compromise to plaintiffs’ claims. It finds no reason to deviate from this finding now, especially considering that there are no objections. The Court consequently finds that the settlement is fair and reasonable for purposes of final approval.

III. Attorney Fees, Costs, and Enhancement Award

Plaintiffs seek a fee award of $1,833,333, or 1/3 of the gross settlement, which is not an uncommon contingency fee allocation. This award is facially reasonable under the “common fund” doctrine, which allows a party recovering a fund for the benefit of others to recover attorney fees from the fund itself. Plaintiffs also provide a lodestar figure of $871,962, based on 1,649 hours expended on the case by attorneys with a blended billing rate of $528.78 per hour and actual rates ranging from $275 to $850 per hour. The lodestar results in a reasonable multiplier of 2.1. While some of the time billed, particularly with respect to the instant motions for final approval, appears excessive, a higher multiplier is appropriate in this case due to the complexity of the matter and the excellent result for the class. (See Laffitte v. Robert Half Intern. Inc. (2016) 1 Cal.5th 480, 489 [multiplier impacted by factors including the quality of the representation, the novelty and complexity of the issues, the results obtained, and the contingent risk presented].) Consequently, as a cross-check, the lodestar information supports the 1/3 percentage fee requested, particularly where there are no objections to the attorney fee request. (See id. at pp. 503-504 [trial court did not abuse its discretion in approving fee award of 1/3 of the common fund, cross-checked against a lodestar resulting in a multiplier of 2.03 to 2.13].)

Plaintiffs also request $45,594.13 in costs, slightly below the $50,000 estimate that was provided at preliminary approval. The costs are reasonable based on the summary provided by plaintiffs and are approved. The $20,000 in administrative costs are also approved.

Finally, plaintiff Ha requests a service award of $25,000, and plaintiffs Bonner, Rabil, and Roberts request awards of $5,000 each. To support her request, plaintiff Ha submits a declaration describing her efforts and indicating that she spent hundreds of hours on this action, including traveling from Southern California to participate in a full-day mediation in San Francisco. The other plaintiffs declare that they also attended the mediation and were actively involved in the case during its later stages. The Court finds that the class representatives are entitled to enhancement awards and the amounts requested are reasonable.

IV. Conclusion and Order

Plaintiffs’ motions for final approval and for attorneys’ fees, reimbursement of expenses, and service awards are GRANTED.

The following class is certified for settlement purposes:

All persons who worked for Google in California as temporary or contract sourcers, closers, recruiters, or other personnel who performed substantially the same work as workers with those titles or in those roles in Google’s People Operations department (including, without limitation, temporary workers assigned to the Channels organization) for at least one day between January 27, 2012 and May 9, 2017.

Michelle Goddard is excluded from the class pursuant to her request.

The Court will prepare the order.