ARCATA, Calif. – The history, archaeological record and ongoing preservation efforts at the Falk townsite in the Bureau of Land Management Headwaters Forest Reserve will be topics of a free presentation, Saturday, Oct. 5, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., at the Clarke Museum, 240 E St., in Eureka.

Speakers Julie Clark and James Roscoe will discuss how the town and lumber mill fit into the history of Humboldt County and how an archaeological inventory of the site led to it’s listing in 2023 in the National Register of Historic Places.

Clark worked extensively as a Bureau of Land Management park ranger in the Headwaters Forest Reserve and wrote “Falk:  Lumber Company Town of the American West,” a book detailing life in Falk, a once thriving logging and lumber mill town. She holds Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Humboldt State University (now Cal Poly Humboldt).

Roscoe, former president of the Humboldt County Historical Society, conducted an archaeological field study and inventory of Falk with Humboldt State University that led to the listing of the site on the National Register. He holds a master’s degree in cultural resource management and archaeology, and formerly directed the HSU Cultural Resources Facility.  His is a lifelong Humboldt County resident.

Falk was a busy logging and mill town from 1884 to 1937. Workers toiled deep in the now-protected redwood stands, felling trees, shipping them on Falk’s very own railroad to the mill, and finally sending the lumber to worldwide markets via a port at present day Eureka.

The presentation is one of a year-long series of events chronicling the 25^th anniversary of establishment of the Headwaters Forest Reserve. It is offered by the Humboldt County Historical Society Free Lecture Series and the Clarke Museum.

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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.