Plaintiffs' Salvage Operation Fails…

Minnesota Litigator reported a serious defeat for plaintiffs’ class action lawyers in the Mooney v. Allianz case late last year.

Plaintiffs’ counsel sought to salvage some benefit from this long battle by seeking injunctive relief which, if awarded, would have given them attorneys’ fees.  (The jury had found that defendant Allianz “use[d] a misrepresentation or deceptive practice in the course of selling its two-tiered annuities” and “intend[ed] that others would rely on the misrepresentation or deceptive practice,” but that none of the class members were “harmed as a direct result of the misrepresentation or deceptive practice.”)  Plaintiffs had two theories, both of which the Court (U.S. District Court Judge Ann Montgomery (D. Minn.)) rejected.

Defendant Allianz’s motion to amend the judgment was granted though the Court, in a footnote, chided Allianz:

The proposals submitted by Allianz…strike the Court as ironic as they would appear to run afoul of the very argument advanced by Allianz that a judgment must be a ’self-contained document,’ distinct from any opinion or memorandum, and may not incorporate, recite, or refer to other case proceedings.

Appeal would seem likely given the amount invested by plaintiffs, the likely costs of appeal, and the potential benefit if plaintiffs were to succeed in reversing some or all of their setbacks.
Mooney v Allianz