Health insurers balk at Quinn Emanuel's 'astronomical' $185 million fee award

(Reuters) - A group of U.S. health insurers want a federal appeals court to scrap a $185 million legal fee award to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan for its work in securing $3.7 billion for class members in Obamacare litigation.

Calling the legal fees "untenable," more than 30 insurers mainly under UnitedHealthcare Inc and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a court filing on Thursday night that Quinn Emanuel's 10,000 hours did not warrant such a substantial award. The insurers appealed a September order from a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge who found the amount reasonable.

Quinn Emanuel represented a class of insurers that were the first to sue the U.S. government over its failure to make certain payments under an Obamacare program designed to encourage private health insurers to provide coverage to uninsured Americans.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2020, ruling for insurers, said the U.S. must pay more than $12 billion.

While class counsel deserved to be "paid fairly," wrote Moe Keshavarzi, a lawyer for the objecting insurers, it did not deserve the "astronomical award" the lower court granted. That award amounted to an $18,000 hourly fee, wrote Keshavarzi, of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.

Lawyers for UnitedHealthcare and Kaiser Foundation argued the lower judge should have applied a "cross-check" on Quinn Emanuel's fee, a restriction based on the number of hours worked.

The insurers' lawyers urged the Federal Circuit to use the dispute to provide guidance to judges weighing demands for fees.

Keshavarzi did not immediately respond to a message on Friday seeking comment, and a lead lawyer for the class, Stephen Swedlow of Quinn Emanuel, did not immediately return a similar request. "We are very proud of our work on these cases and with the results we obtained," Swedlow said in 2020.

Quinn Emanuel has said it faced "substantial risk" in the litigation given the lack of precedent, headwinds from the government and potential for nonrecovery. But the firm was not lead counsel at the Supreme Court, and "class counsel never had to take a single deposition," lawyers for UnitedHealth and Kaiser Foundation argued to the Federal Circuit.

The attorneys last year proposed $8.8 million in compensation for Quinn Emanuel as a "generous and legally defensible fee."

The case is Health Republic Insurance Company v. United States, U.S. Court of Federal Claims, No. 16-cv-00259.

For the class: Stephen Swedlow and J.D. Horton of Quinn Emanuel

For the objecting class members: Moe Keshavarzi of Sheppard Mullin

Read more:

Quinn Emanuel awarded $185 million in fees for Obamacare case

Obamacare insurers blast Quinn Emanuel's 'grossly excessive' $185 mln fee bid

Supreme Court tells U.S. government to pay insurers $12 billion under Obamacare

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