A year after refusing to take up a controversial fee decision in the Roundup multidistrict litigation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a federal judge’s authority to impose common benefit assessments in a separate case involving C.R. Bard Inc.’s medical devices.

In a Thursday ruling, the Ninth Circuit stepped into the growing debate over common benefit fees, awarded to lead plaintiffs’ attorneys appointed in multidistrict litigation for their legal efforts but funded through assessments made against settlements of cases involving other lawyers. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria’s 2021 ruling in Roundup raised red flags about the use of common benefit fees in multidistrict litigation, but the Ninth Circuit, on Nov. 3, found it lacked jurisdiction to review that order because the timing was premature.

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