A federal judge on Wednesday barred a Little Rock attorney and the law firm he heads from practicing in federal court in the Eastern District of Arkansas for two years, citing their efforts to collect what the judge described as inflated attorneys fees in a class-action lawsuit settlement and drag out litigation over the issue.
The order by U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson sanctioning attorney Josh Sanford and the Sanford Law Firm was followed almost immediately by a notice of appeal.
The law firm won a class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 on behalf of Anthony Vines and Dominique Lewis, who represented a class of workers at Welspun Pipes Inc., accusing the company of underpaying the workers for overtime hours they worked. A complaint accused the company of rounding down hours worked on its electronic time clock, resulting in several hours of unpaid work each month, and of not paying overtime in accordance with federal wage and hour laws.
In May 2020, Wilson refused to approve a settlement in the case, balking over the $96,000 in attorney's fees that were included.
He instead sent the parties back to the negotiating table with orders to "start from scratch" and keep attorneys' fees out of the negotiations, which he said the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had declared must be decided separately, and he accused the Sanford firm of trying to "squeeze excessive fees" out of the company by tying the resolution of the claims to an agreement on fees.
The next month, Wilson...
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