Attorney fees; FedRCivP 54; Additional discovery; Rule 23(h)); Standing to appeal the “common benefit structure” of the attorney-fee award & an awarded expense; Whether the district court abused its discretion in awarding attorney fees & expenses

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court affirmed the district court’s attorney-fee awards in this Flint Water Crisis litigation. It rejected appellants-Objectors’ claims that they were entitled to additional discovery, and held that they lacked standing to appeal the common benefit structure of the attorney-fee awards. After a settlement was reached, plaintiffs’ court-appointed attorneys, Co-Lead Class Counsel and Co-Liaison Counsel, requested attorneys’ fees and reimbursement for expenses. The district court granted their request in part and denied it in part, using “the percentage-of-the-fund method with a lodestar cross-check.” It awarded plaintiffs’ Counsel $7,147,802.36 for expenses. As to fees, it awarded a Common Benefit Assessment of 6.33% of the total $626.25 million settlement amount, and “capped the aggregate amount that may be paid in other fees and common benefit awards at 25%[.]” Appellants (the Hall Objectors, the Chapman Objectors, and the Roberts Objector) appealed the award. They argued they should have had been allowed to conduct a more “detailed discovery of Counsel’s billing and costs records, that the fee award’s common benefit structure constitutes an abuse of discretion, and that a $500 charge for bone lead scans performed by Co-Liaison Counsel was unreasonable.” The court held that while “Rule 23(h) clearly affords class members the right to object to counsel’s fee request, nothing in the Rule’s plain language specifically entitles class claimants to detailed discovery.” It was not persuaded by the Objectors’ citations to cases from other jurisdictions or by their references to due-process protections. The court characterized their claims that a more extensive review would have revealed inaccurate charges as “entirely speculative.” It then held that they lacked standing to challenge the district court Fee Order’s Common Benefit Assessment. They challenged certain “special assessments” imposed on claimants who did not retain counsel or retained counsel later in the litigation. The court held that “because the Hall Objectors would fare no better with or without the Common Benefit Assessments applicable to their claims, they fail to demonstrate that they have suffered an injury in fact.” The court also held that since the Chapman Objectors were “not aggrieved by the Fee Order’s common benefit structure, they lack standing to appeal the Order’s Common Benefit Assessments.” The court further found that Roberts lacked standing to appeal the order as to the bone scan expense.