Lawyers awarded $147M in Google data privacy case

US District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco awarded nearly $147 million in legal fees to the attorneys representing plaintiffs in a data privacy trial against Google. The ruling follows a jury finding Google liable for secretly collecting app activity data from millions of users who had turned off a tracking feature. The law firms Boies Schiller Flexner, Susman Godfrey, and Morgan & Morgan, who sought billions in damages and spent over 49,670 hours on the litigation, received the fee approval. Judge Seeborg acknowledged the extraordinary nature of the case and the exemplary performance of counsel, noting that the size of the fee award was discomforting as each of the 98 million class members will walk away with less than $5. He justified this by stating it was a consequence of using class action to remedy widespread torts. Google has denied any wrongdoing and plans to appeal against the verdict, contending that the plaintiffs presented no survey evidence, expert testimony, or other uniform evidence establishing that users were actually misled by Google's disclosures. Despite this, Judge Seeborg denied Google's request for a ruling summarily granting the company a win in a separate order on Friday.

(Source：NewsBytes)