Cell Phone Case Settled; Lawyers Object on Fees

An Orange County judge approved settlements in a price-fixing case against Southern California’s two major cellular phone companies, but awarded the plaintiffs’ lawyers only $8 million in fees--about one-fifth of the amount they had sought.

Under the settlements, AirTouch Cellular and LA Cellular agreed to provide customers as much as $183.3 million in discounts on services and accessories.

But in the decision released Wednesday, Superior Court Judge John C. Woolley sharply reduced the $41.2 million in fees that the customers’ lawyers had sought.

The lawyers received most of their basic hourly fees, which totaled $8.6 million.

“I’m not happy,” said J. David Franklin of La Jolla, whose law firm was one of six that spent four years on the case. He called the decision “ridiculous.”

In major class-action settlements, judges usually award more than basic fees when they determine that the plaintiffs’ lawyers did an especially good job or that the result was especially good for plaintiffs.

Woolley, though, made no comment about the lawyers’ effort in his 12-page decision, other than to note that he had time to “observe the quality and quantity of each attorney’s contributions to the ultimate settlement.”

Last year, AirTouch in Irvine and LA Cellular in Cerritos agreed to settle two lawsuits by Anaheim entrepreneur Arthur Garabedian, who owns Western Mobile Telephone Co. and is a pioneer in the mobile telephone business.

The 1993 suit, which became a class-action on behalf of 1 million Southern California customers, alleged that the two companies systematically overcharged customers for years and that key managers for the two companies met in 1987 and agreed not to compete on pricing.

In settling, AirTouch agreed to provide up to $90 million in discounts and LA Cellular agreed to give up to $93.3 million in discounts. The phone companies continue to deny that they engaged in price-fixing.