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Law Firms

Quinn Emanuel disclosure order highlights relatively new product: judgment preservation insurance

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 31, 2024, 3:39 pm CST

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan must disclose terms of judgment preservation insurance that it allegedly bought before distributing a $185 million fee award to partners, according to a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge.

In a Jan. 30 opinion, U.S. Federal Claims Judge Kathryn C. Davis ordered Quinn Emanuel to disclose the policy document but denied a request for an accounting and safekeeping of the funds, report Reuters and Bloomberg Law.

A group of health insurers that objected to the legal fee had sought the information.

Davis ruled after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the $185 million award because she failed to properly conduct a “lodestar cross-check” that considers hours worked, billing rates and a risk multiplier to compensate for the risk of no or reduced recovery. The appeals court said the fee award had an implicit multiplier that was “outside the mainstream” and ordered Davis to reassess the amount.

The award translated to an hourly fee of about $18,500, according to previous coverage of the case.

Bloomberg Law called judgment preservation insurance “a relatively new area of litigation finance” that is becoming more popular. Typically, it is used to preserve some portion of large awards from being overturned on appeal, but details of such polices are mostly under wraps.

A Bloomberg Law article written by an outside contributor described judgment preservation insurance, known as JPL, as “appellate risk insurance.” The insurance can be obtained by a party or a litigation funder, and it kicks in after a judgment is final with no further possibility for appeal.

“It may insure all of the judgment, or it may be targeted at a specific legal issue that is challenged on appeal, such as attorneys’ fees or statutory damages,” the contributed article reports.

Davis said she was ordering the policy disclosure in the interest of transparency. She also said the policy terms would be relevant on remand “if the policy provisions are inconsistent with the court’s objective ‘to ensure an overall fee that is fair for counsel and equitable within the class.’”

Quinn Emanuel received the $185 million fee award in its representation of two classes of health plan insurers in litigation under the Affordable Care Act. The insurers said the federal government did not abide by its promise to pay them for losses incurred for the first three years of participation in the law’s insurance marketplace. The litigation settled for $3.7 billion, and the $185 million represented 5% of the award.

The case is Health Republic Insurance Co. v. United States.

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3. Taking ‘legal long shot,’ Trump’s lawyers…

Constitutional Law

Taking ‘legal long shot,’ Trump’s lawyers point to impeachment judgment clause in immunity argument

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 2, 2024, 2:16 pm CST

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are taking their immunity argument to a federal appeals court after the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 22 rejected a request by special counsel Jack Smith to grant certiorari before judgment to quickly decide the issue.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear arguments in the case next week, the New York Times reports. At issue is whether Trump is immune from Smith’s election-interference prosecution because it is based on actions that Trump took while in office.

Part of the lawyers’ argument focuses on the impeachment judgment clause, which says impeached parties who are convicted in the U.S. Senate can still be criminally prosecuted, according to the New York Times.

The impeachment judgment clause reads: “Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States. But the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.”

Trump was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

In a “legal long shot” argument, Trump’s lawyers contend that the clause “presupposes that a president who is not convicted may not be subject to criminal prosecution,” the New York Times says.

In a “slightly narrower but still audacious argument,” the lawyers argue that a president who is acquitted by the Senate can’t be prosecuted for the acquitted conduct, the New York Times reports.

Smith argued in his brief that the impeachment judgment clause constrains sanctions available to Congress but places no limits on post-impeachment criminal prosecution.

An acquittal in an impeachment trial isn’t necessarily based on a factual conclusion that the impeached party did not commit impeachment offenses, Smith said. He pointed to statements by at least 31 of the 43 senators who voted to acquit Trump that their vote was at least partly due to the fact that Trump was already out of office, and they didn’t think that there was jurisdiction for the trial.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of Washington, D.C., had ruled against Trump on the immunity issue Dec. 1.

“Nothing in the impeachment judgment clause prevents criminal prosecution thereafter,” she wrote.

How Appealing linked to the brief for Trump and additional coverage, while the National Law Journal covered the Supreme Court’s rejection of Smith’s petition for certiorari before judgment.

See also:

“Federal appeals court narrows federal judge’s gag order in Trump election-interference case”

“As 1 judge temporarily lifts Trump gag order, another says he’s ‘way beyond’ warning stage”

“Trump’s election-subversion co-conspirators included DOJ official, 4 other lawyers, indictment says”