Opinion ID: 197312
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appellants' Position

Text: 24 Appellants aim their main broadside at the regimen established for documenting, monitoring, submitting, and approving PSC costs. Although the PSC, IRPAs, and plaintiffs in mass-tort MDLs share the same litigation goal (viz., an optimum common fund), internecine differences as to subsidiary matters--particularly the appropriate allocations from the common fund for their respective attorney fees and costs--are commonplace. The greater the attorney fees and costs awarded the PSC, of course, the less available for the IRPAs and their individual clients. Appellants maintain that these conflicting self-interests necessarily entail heightened oversight responsibilities on the part of the district courts in mass-tort MDLs to ensure stringent monitoring and review procedures adequate to protect the individual plaintiffs and IRPAs from overreaching by the PSC. 25 Appellants fault the district court for adopting reimbursement procedures which delegate important judicial oversight responsibilities to auditors appointed either by the court or the PSC. It is the PSC, they say, rather than the appellants, which must bear the ultimate burden in establishing entitlement to reimbursement, see Grendel's Den, Inc. v. Larkin, 749 F.2d 945, 956-57 (1st Cir.1984), which in turn necessitates three distinct showings by the PSC for each claimed reimbursement; viz., that it document: (i) the actual expenditure; (ii) its necessariness to the assigned litigation task; and (iii) its reasonableness, see, e.g., In re Agent Orange Prod. Liab. Litig., 611 F.Supp. 1296, 1314 (E.D.N.Y.1985) (Expenses must be both reasonable in amount and reasonably related to the interests of the class.), aff'd in pertinent part, 818 F.2d 226, 238 (2d Cir.1987). 26 Appellants contend that the Raben and Kevane audits did not inform the district court adequately regarding potential PSC excesses. Raben and Kevane were accountants, neither trained in the law nor familiar with the litigation tasks assigned to the PSC. At best they could verify that the PSC and its members actually made the claimed expenditures, but in many instances PSC members maintained no detailed records relating to their reasonableness and necessariness. Moreover, appellants argue, though Monita Sterling and others similarly designated by the PSC undoubtedly were more familiar than Kevane and Raben with the nature and demands of the PSC's litigation responsibilities, their assessments of claimed expenses were inherently biased because their employment with the PSC gave them a vested interest in justifying PSC reimbursements. 27 Appellants contend that the district court erred in suggesting that it was incumbent upon them, rather than the PSC, to demonstrate that particular PSC expenditures were not reimbursable. See, e.g., Order No. 520, at 1 n. 1 (Parties questioning payments previously approved carried the burden of setting them aside whereas the PSC/Mr. Foulds were required to justify the pending request.). The court based its ruling on the ground that most PSC cost-reimbursement claims during earlier stages in the litigation had been approved, without opposition, as submitted. 28 Appellants complain not only that the district court thereby subverted the well-established burden of proof incumbent upon the PSC, see Grendel's Den, 749 F.2d at 956-57, but foisted on the plaintiffs and IRPAs the impracticable task of rummaging through mountainous PSC documentation to determine--within very restrictive court-ordered deadlines--which PSC-cost submissions were either inadequately documented or otherwise nonreimbursable. Appellants therefore urge that all otherwise allowable PSC-cost reimbursements be reduced by a fixed (if somewhat arbitrary) discount (25% to 33%), see, e.g., Mokover v. Neco Enters., Inc., 785 F.Supp. 1083, 1093-94 (D.R.I.1992), to reflect the likely extent to which the PSC inferably overcharged due to its failure to maintain appropriate documentation.