A group of U.S. health insurers have asked a judge to deny a renewed request from law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan for $185 million in class action legal fees, calling the demand “indefensible” after an appeals court last year struck it down.
UnitedHealthcare Inc and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc made their objection to Quinn Emanuel’s requested legal fee in a filing on Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.
Quinn Emanuel secured a $3.7 billion class action judgment for private insurers in 2020 over claims that the U.S. government failed to meet its obligations under an Obamacare provision aimed at encouraging medical coverage to uninsured Americans.
An appeals court last year struck down the $185 million in fees initially awarded to the firm, ruling that the lower court should conduct a new analysis of the amount in relation to the hours the lawyers invested. Now Quinn Emanuel and objectors — led by UnitedHealth and Kaiser — are clashing over whether a lower amount should be awarded.
Quinn Emanuel, UnitedHealthcare and Kaiser did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The 900-lawyer Quinn Emanuel has defended the $185 million award as appropriate for the "substantial risk" it took on and 10,000 hours it expended on the case.
UnitedHealth and Kaiser on Tuesday told the court that Quinn Emanuel used “inflated and unproven hours” to justify its request. The insurers said Quinn Emanuel should be awarded between about $11 million and $23 million.
“10,000 hours is a staggeringly high number of hours under the circumstances, and the objectors reasonably wonder — as should the court — how class counsel could have possibly spent so many hours on this case,” the insurers wrote.
Quinn Emanuel has said it already distributed the $185 million award within the firm.
It had an insurance policy on the award that required it to “prosecute its interests in the attorney’s fee dispute, vigorously, in good faith, and with the same zeal as if no insurance were in place,” court documents show.
The insurers said the insurance policy “essentially forecloses” Quinn Emanuel from seeking a "reasonable" award.
“If it did so, class counsel would face the risk that its insurers would claim that it had jeopardized its insurance coverage by not ‘vigorously prosecuting’ the award,” the insurers said.
The case is Health Republic Insurance Co v United States, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, No. 1:16-cv-00259-KCD.
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