RICHMOND, Va. (Legal Newsline) - Class action lawyers are in Virginia federal court fighting over more than $2 million in fees awarded in a settlement with a life insurance company.
Geoff McDonald & Associates, of Richmond, sued the prominent Alabama firm Beasley Allen in August in Henrico County Circuit Court, though the defendant has since removed the case to federal court and has asked it be transferred to Ohio.
The dispute stems from class action litigation McDonald feels the firms had an equal interest in. McDonald says Beasley Allen has kept all proceeds from an Ohio settlement that paid $4.6 million in fees even though GMA is owed $2,070,000.
"(O)n Oct. 11, 2021, after the settlement in the USFL case had been approved - and without the knowledge or authorization of GMA - Beasley Allen and (Dee) Miles filed a motion for attorneys fees," the complaint says.
"However, in filing this motion, and for the first time, Beasley Allen and Miles removed GMA from that motion as co-counsel... This was done without the knowledge or consent of GMA."
The business arrangement began in 2015 when the firms decided to sue life insurance companies that allegedly increased costs without justification. They sued Banner Life Insurance Company in 2016 and realized the potential for similar cases against other companies.
GMA says there was an agreement they would split the costs and the fees evenly, and that it drafted the complaint that would be used against Banner and future defendants.
In 2017, a complaint in Ohio listed GMA and Beasley Allen as co-counsel, along with a local firm. GMA says an "agreement was in place" so there was no separate written agreement for the second case.
The first case in Maryland settled and provided $8 million in fees. A special master heard a dispute between GMA and Beasley Allen, "finding that Beasley Allen wrongly ignored the fee-splitting agreement," the suit says.
Almost a year later, the USFL case in Ohio settled. Beasley Allen's motion to dismiss says this latest fight should be heard in that court.
"GMA alleges that the oral agreement it seeks to enforce was specifically for class action cases," Beasley Allen's lawyers wrote Oct. 18. "As 'counsel of record' in a class action case, GMA cannot in good faith argue that the Court that approved the settlement and retained jurisdiction over fee disputes is not a forum where this action could have been brought."