State retirees' lawyers to get $1.5 million for work on health insurance case - News - The State Journal-Register - Springfield, IL

 

• Lawyers representing state retirees in a case involving their health insurance premiums will receive a little more than $1.5 million in fees and costs for their work.

  The amount, determined by Sangamon County Associate Judge Steven Nardulli, is less than half of the $3.1 million in compensation (including a multiplier) the lawyers sought during a court hearing two weeks ago.

  Money to pay the fees will come out of the roughly $63 million in health insurance premiums collected from retirees. The money was deducted from their pension checks.

  In his ruling, Nardulli said the attorney fees amount to about 2.37 percent of the premium money paid. In other words, when refunds are made, for every $100 in premium refunds due to an employee, $2.37 will be deducted to pay legal fees.

  After the state passed a law that began to charge all retirees premiums for their state-subsidized health insurance, multiple lawsuits were filed challenging the law as a violation of the Illinois Constitution's pension protection clause. Nardulli consolidated the various cases, but multiple attorneys remained involved.

  The attorneys affected by the legal fees decision took their cases on a contingency basis, meaning they would not get paid unless they won. Some other attorneys were paid by their clients as the case proceeded through the courts.

  Nine lawyers and a paralegal initially claimed more than 3,500 hours working on the case. The lawyers' fees ranged from $250 to $400 an hour. They also claimed a multiplier that is allowed in class-action lawsuits.

  Nardulli reviewed the billing and cut the hours to 2,668. He also limited hourly billing to $250. Springfield lawyers Don Craven and John Myers, who brought one of the earliest lawsuits against the law, worked the most hours on the case, Nardulli determined. Each will be paid $265,625 for his work. Craven could not be reached for comment. Myers declined to comment.

  Hundreds of people filed letters with the court, virtually all of them objecting to attorney fees. Many felt the state should cover the legal expenses since it lost the case. Nardulli said that while he sympathized with their position, nothing in the law allowed him to shift the costs to the state.

  More than 300 others objected because they said they were paying their own counsel and should not have to pay for others. A number of those were members of the State Universities Annuitants Association, which hired its own firm to represent members. Nardulli noted, though, that the association didn't get involved until after the Illinois Supreme Court ruled against the law and sent it back to circuit court for further proceedings.

  "The fact remains that the work performed in overturning the assessment of health insurance premiums was performed by attorneys other than SUAA attorneys," Nardulli wrote in his decision. "To exclude SUAA members from sharing in the cost of the litigation would unfairly shift the burden of the attorney fees to other retirees, and would provide a benefit to SUAA members for which they did not contribute."

  Page 2 of 2 - In a short briefing to members, the annuitants association said it is "grateful to be able to say that the fees being taken from money being returned to (retired university) members are far less than requested."

  Now that attorney fees have been decided, work can being on determining how much of a refund is due to each retiree. The court schedule calls for refunds to be sent out in early June.

  — Contact Doug Finke: doug.finke@sj-er.com, 788-1527, twitter.com/dougfinkesjr.

• By Doug Finke, State Capitol Bureau

  The State Journal-Register

  By Doug Finke, State Capitol Bureau

  Posted Apr. 15, 2015 at 1:23 PM
  Updated Apr 15, 2015 at 10:14 PM

 

State retirees' lawyers to get $1.5 million for work on health insurance case - News - The State Journal-Register - Springfield, IL