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7-Eleven Owners For Fair Franchising v. Southland Corp.12/29/2000
ubling to pore over pages of transcripts of hearings before the trial judge, troubling to see the extent to which the class action has become the vehicle for prolonged and bitter conflict between attorneys representing the same "client."
The absence of much substantive law to apply in such cases is equally troubling. Courts and commentators have pointed out that "the use of settlement classes . . . risks transforming the courts into mediation forums," with a "natural hydraulic pressure" leading to settlement. (Pick-Up Truck Litigation, supra, 55 F.3d at p. 790; see also Coffee, Jr., The Corruption of the Class Action, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 7, 1994, p. A15 ["Trial judges are being converted from neutral umpires, adjudicating factual disputes, into problem-solving bureaucrats dispensing social justice"].) The tendency is to convert the class action lawsuit into a judicialized administrative process, with the trial judge serving as a kind of glorified mediator, resolving the endless disputes that arise between class counsel, shepherding the negotiation process, overseeing the mailing of notices, and so on. Objectors have presented a torrent of criticisms of the Southland settlement and the circumstances leading up to it. Underlying and driving these complaints is former counsels' dissatisfaction with the quantity of attorneys' fees awarded them by the trial court and preceding events that led to their discharge as class counsel.
Given this context, one aspect of the settlement process does appear salutary: the recognition by the appellate courts that their review function in such circumstances is gross at best and, given that "so many imponderables enter into the evaluation of a settlement" (Mars Steel, supra, at p. 682), an abuse of discretion standard of appellate review is singularly appropriate. The trial judge in this case spent untold hours as a class action administrator and, on the whole, acquitted himself well. Having reviewed the lengthy record, we are satisfied that the settlement is fair, adequate, and reasonable, that a national class was properly certified, and that the settlement agreement was not the product of fraud or collusion. The judgment is affirmed; respondents to recover their costs.
We concur:
Hanlon, P.J.
Woolard, J.
Trial Court: Alameda County Superior Court
Trial Judge: Honorable Richard A. Hodge
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