Stephen C. Yeagley, on behalf of himself and those similarly situated v. Wells Fargo & Company; Wells Fargo Bank, N.a.

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent*
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
STEPHEN C. YEAGLEY, on behalf of
himself and those similarly situated,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
WELLS FARGO & COMPANY; WELLS
FARGO BANK, N.A.,
Defendants - Appellees.
No. 08-15378
D.C. No. CV-05-03403-CRB
MEMORANDUM *
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Charles R. Breyer, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted February 8, 2010
San Francisco, California
Before: GOODWIN, TROTT and IKUTA, Circuit Judges.
This court may review a contested award of attorneys’ fees despite
settlement of the underlying dispute; the prevailing party has no obligation to make
an express reservation of the right to appeal the award of attorneys’ fees. See, e.g.,
FILED
FEB 22 2010
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U .S. C OU R T OF APPE ALS

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Lobatz v. U.S. W. Cellular of Cal., Inc., 222 F.3d 1142, 1146–47 (9th Cir. 2000).
Nor does the language of the Settlement Agreement provide any bar to Yeagley’s
pursuit of this appeal. The Settlement Agreement does not specify an agreed-upon
attorneys’ fee, but rather reflects that Yeagley will limit the amount of his demand
to $1.5 million or less in exchange for Wells Fargo’s agreement not to challenge an
award in that amount. The Settlement Agreement contains no waiver of an appeal
of the award of attorneys’ fees applicable to Yeagley.
Under a fee-shifting statute such as the FCRA, see 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a)(3),
the lodestar method is generally the correct method for calculating attorneys’ fees.
Staton v. Boeing Co., 327 F.3d 938, 965 (9th Cir. 2003). Although parties can
request in their settlement agreement that the district court award attorneys’ fees
using common-fund principles, id. at 969, 972, the Settlement Agreement here
includes no such agreement. Nor does the Settlement Agreement otherwise create
a common fund: the settlement did not award any monetary relief to the class, see
Zucker v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 192 F.3d 1323, 1326 (9th Cir. 1999), and
this was not “the unusual instance where the value to individual class members of
benefits deriving from injunctive relief can be accurately ascertained,” Staton, 327
F.3d at 974. Therefore, despite Yeagley’s arguments to the district court, the
attorneys’ fees should have been calculated using the lodestar method, and
Yeagley’s claim that the district court erred in calculating the amount of the

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common fund is not germane. Accordingly, we remand for the district court to
exercise its broad discretion under the lodestar method to recalculate a reasonable
attorneys’ fee. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 436–37 (1983), abrogated
on other grounds by Tex. State Teachers Assoc. v. Garland Indep. Sch. Dist., 489
U.S. 782 (1989); Passantino v. Johnson & Johnson Consumer Prods., Inc., 212
F.3d 493, 518 (9th Cir. 2000).
REVERSED AND REMANDED.

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