Johnson Stands (For Now): Eleventh Circuit Keeps Its Ban on Class Rep Incentive Awards
For decades, Plaintiffs and defendants have fought bitterly over most aspects of class-action law. One issue, however, had managed to escape serious contention: the propriety of paying “incentive awards” (also known as “service awards”) to class representatives. Broadly speaking, such awards are sums paid to named plaintiffs—above and beyond what they receive as ordinary class members—to compensate them for the time, effort, and inconvenience their role may require. According to one academic study, these awards are generally modest, averaging 0.16% of the class-wide recovery, with a median of 0.02%. Incentive awards became widespread in the 1980s and 1990s, and are now near-ubiquitous, especially in the consumer class action domain where we focus. See 1 William B. Rubenstein, Newberg and Rubenstein on Class Actions § 17:7 (6th ed., June 2022 update) (noting that courts approved incentive awards in 93.4% of consumer class actions between 2006 and 2011).