Opinion ID: 338426
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Contingency

Text: 37 When appellants argue that Lindy I forecloses the contingency issue they not only misread the language of Lindy I upon which they rely, but they also belittle the district court's painstaking comparison between the limited effect of the criminal prosecutions and the breadth of the civil litigation. 38 Chief Judge Seitz said in Lindy I : The court may find that the contingency was so slight . . . that an increased allowance for the contingent nature of the fee would be minimal. 487 F.2d at 168 (emphasis added). The language was permissive, not mandatory. 39 The district court specifically found the contingency factor was not slight, but rather justified a substantial increased allowance. 382 F.Supp. at 1017. Success of the civil suits, the district court stated, depended on several contingencies: 40 (1) the uncertainty of the class members' ability to prove liability and damages; 41 (2) the existence of other categories of claimants in this litigation contending that they and not the builder-owners were entitled to any recovery against the defendants; 42 (3) this Court's prior decision in Maricopa County v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 323 F.Supp. 381 (E.D.Pa.1970), and Mangano v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 50 F.R.D. 13 (E.D.Pa.1970), aff'd, 438 F.2d 1187 (3d Cir. 1971); 43 (4) the fact that the time period and range of products encompassed within the government's evidence in the criminal case was drastically more limited than the allegations in the complaints herein; and 44 (5) the settling defendants' denials of any violation of the antitrust laws and any overcharges, and the fact that they could have been expected to litigate all issues fully, including appeals if necessary. 45 Ibid. at 1015. Thus, assuming plaintiffs could prove that defendants had violated the antitrust laws, plaintiffs would have had to prove they, as distinguished from an alternate potential class of claimants in the distribution scheme, were entitled to collect damages. Moreover, at the outset of the civil litigation, defendants challenged the propriety of a national class action on the ground that it was unmanageable. Perhaps most important, however, and as more specifically set forth by the district court, ibid. at 1015-16, only three of the 16 defendants were convicted after original not guilty pleas. The 13 other defendants pleaded nolo contendere, thus imposing on plaintiffs the evidentiary burdens to which Chief Judge Seitz alluded in his footnote 12 to Lindy I, supra at n.10. This analysis led the district court to conclude: 46 Thus, this was not a case where plaintiffs received from the government on a silver platter the evidence necessary to prove their claims against the three convicted defendants, much less against the thirteen which had entered pleas of nolo contendere. Substantial problems of proof were present as to both liability and damages. Yet petitioners were able to negotiate settlements with all defendants which yielded funds producing $10.75 for each bathroom unit purchased by claimants during the full four-year period. 47 Ibid. at 1016.