June 5, 2025
A Maryland federal judge granted final approval Thursday to settlements worth nearly $400 million for poultry processing workers who claimed that the nation’s biggest chicken producers conspired to suppress their wages.
In an order, U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher of the District of Maryland said there were no objections to the various settlement agreements, though more than 3,300 exclusion requests had been submitted by class members.
“The settlement agreements are fair, reasonable and adequate settlements for the settlement classes within the meaning of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23 and in accordance with the factors identified by the Fourth Circuit,” Judge Gallagher wrote.
Judge Gallagher also gave final sign-off to over $132.6 million in attorney fees for the three lead class counsel firms in the case: Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC That figure represents 33.3% of the total $398 million settlement fund.
“Without the initiative, skill, experience and hard work of plaintiffs’ counsel, this case would never have been filed, let alone succeed,” the workers wrote in their attorney fees request last month. “No government enforcer was investigating these claims. No other firms were. The conspiracy was carefully hidden from the workers. Only plaintiffs’ counsel’s dogged nine-month investigation revealed the poultry industry’s conspiracy to suppress compensation.”
. . .
The workers are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP and Berger Montague.
Read Poultry Workers Get Final OK On $398M Wage-Fixing Deals.