## Facts

- Time Warner provided cable services and collected subscribers’ personally identifiable information (PII), including contact information, subscription and billing data, and sensitive identifiers.
- Time Warner stored subscriber PII in a database and allegedly made it available for sale or disclosure to third parties, including marketing entities and affiliated companies.
- Subscribers sued under the Cable Communications Policy Act, alleging inadequate notice about PII practices and unlawful disclosure of PII without consent.
- Plaintiffs sought statutory damages of at least $1,000 per violation per subscriber, creating potential aggregate exposure in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
- After prolonged litigation, the parties presented a revised class settlement offering each class member either one free month of service or $5 cash, with an estimated total benefit of about $10.7 million.
- The settlement also proposed incentive awards to the named plaintiffs and requested $5 million in attorneys’ fees for class counsel; multiple objectors and their counsel sought fees and incentive payments.

## Issues

1. Whether the proposed class settlement was fair, adequate, and reasonable under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e).
2. What attorneys’ fees and costs were reasonable for class counsel and for objectors’ counsel, given the results obtained and the litigation history.
3. Whether incentive awards were appropriate for the named plaintiffs and for objectors.
4. Whether certification for trial of a statutory-damages class creating potentially ruinous aggregate liability should be resolved in this case.

## Decision

- The court approved the revised class settlement as fair, adequate, and reasonable under Rule 23(e).
- The court granted in part and denied in part class counsel’s fee, expense, and incentive requests, awarding reduced attorneys’ fees relative to the $5 million sought and adjusting incentive awards.
- The court granted in part and denied in part one objector counsel’s fee request, crediting objections that improved the settlement structure.
- The court denied another objector counsel’s fee request.
- The court denied incentive awards to objectors.
- The court expressly left unresolved whether a statutory-damages class with potentially ruinous aggregate exposure should be certified for trial.

## Legal Principles

- A class action settlement must be fair, adequate, and reasonable to the class as a whole under Rule 23(e), considering litigation risks, likely recovery, and the practical value of relief.
- Courts may consider the relationship between the class’s recovery and requested attorneys’ fees when determining fee reasonableness.
- Attorneys’ fees may be reduced where the relief obtained is modest relative to the fee request, even if counsel expended substantial time over many years.
- Objectors’ counsel may receive fees when their efforts materially improve the settlement, but compensation is not automatic.
- Incentive awards are discretionary and may be limited or denied when not justified by the record or when disproportionate to class relief.
- Settlement approval may resolve the case without deciding broader questions about certifying statutory-damages classes that could raise due process concerns if aggregated.

## Conclusion

The court approved a revised settlement resolving Cable Act privacy claims with modest per-member relief, reduced requested attorneys’ fees and limited incentive awards, compensated only those objectors’ counsel who materially improved the settlement, and declined to decide whether a potentially ruinous statutory-damages class should be certified for trial.


Parker v. Time Warner Ent. Co., L.P., 631 F. Supp. 2d 242 (E.D.N.Y. 2009)