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Originally Posted by Pturner
Would the five individual plaintiffs risked having to bear the entire expense for the attorneys', accountants' and experts' fees and expenses, plus court costs, had they not settled? If so, it's hard to fault with them for settling.
If they risked their personal money while all other north-side Villagers risked nothing, how could it possibly be fair for the other Villagers to decide whether the individual plaintiff's settled or whether these individuals continued to risk a fortune of their own money on the possibility of endless delays and filings and pleadings and appeals? I must be misunderstanding this. Could someone enlighten me?
As for the offer of $6.7 million in attorneys fees to settle, that does seem outrageous. It's no wonder if the attorney recommended settlement! It almost sounds like an offer by the defendants to buy off the plaintiff's attorney. What am I misunderstanding?
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Based on what I know about the case, I don't find the $6.7 million outrageous, considering the complexity of the case, the amount of the recovery, and the uncertainty of any recovery whatsoever. In fact, the plaintiffs had a terrible time finding any lawyers who would even touch the case. If you think that the facts surrounding the case weren't complex and didn't take a tremendous amount of work, try plowing through the IRS documents analyzing the dealings between the Developer and the Villages Center Community Development District regarding the pricing and sale of the amenity facilities-- the same set of facts that underlay the class-action lawsuit. Then, think about how hard it would be to develop and analyze those facts if you didn't have the powers and resources of the IRS.
In any event, I think that our real concern ought not to be the amount of the attorney fees or the amount of the award to the individual plaintiffs. Those issues are really of no practical importance at this point. Instead, the our real concern: Will the $40,000,000-over-13-years be enough to keep the amenities system going? See my earlier post for my take on that question.