What were you doing back in April, 2018?

I actually remember that timeframe very well for unfortunate reasons I will not discuss because I am nice Czar right now.

But for Mike Greenwald– Mr. Number One– he was merrily headed down to court to collect over a million dollars in fees in a TCPA class settlement.

This case was probably sweeter for Greenwald than most because he had extracted over $4MM in a case that probably had little merit. It was an ATDS case and the U.S. Supreme Court should shortly strike down the very basis he had brought the case upon.

So Greenwald had done his magic and taken a useless little case and converted it into a multi-million dollar asset as only a handful of lawyers can.

Undoubtedly he was hoping for an easy approval process– and he seemingly had one. The court approved his request for fees.

But there was one little problem.

An objector by the name of Jenna Dickenson showed up through counsel and claimed the settlement suffered from various flaws and fees should not be permitted as requested.

Pause.

What the heck is an objector?

Usually I would start the explanation with some derogatory comment about lawyers who make their living as parasites off of other lawyers hard work, but this is the era of the Nice Czar, so instead I will just ask GoogleAI:

In a class action lawsuit, a class action objector is a member of the class who disagrees with a proposed settlement and formally objects to it during the court’s fairness hearing. These objectors can be individuals or their attorneys who raise concerns about the fairness, reasonableness, or adequacy of the settlement for the class

Hmmm.

Close enough for our purposes.

We move on.

This particular objector Dikenson pursued her objection–claiming Greenwald should only get about $200k and not the $1.2MM her was seeking– and mostly loss.

So in 2023 the Court entered a second order approving the fee award at 30% of the class

Guess what?

Dickenson appealed again.

And mostly lost again.

So finally yesterday the court granted Greenwald his money (a third time.)

In Fishman v. NPAS Solutations, 2025 WL 2327091 (S.D. Fl. Aug. 13, 2025) the court analyzed the settlement and the attorney fee invoices anew and determined the class received an excellent result– again the case has no merit post-Facebook so it was a huge win for the class to get anything. And it determined Greenwald’s bills were fair and reasonable.

But guess what?

The objector has stated an intent to appeal again!

This goes to shows a few things:

1. Although being a plaintiff-side TCPA class attorney is incredible lucrative it is not entirely without risk. Even when you reach a deal with the other side there is always risk an objector will show up and cause trouble. In this case Greenwald hasn’t been paid seven years after a settlement was approved– and it will still be a few more years probably.
2. TCPA defendants should ALWAYS assure the TCPA class settlement includes R.E.A.C.H. as the cy pres recipient (unrelated to this topic but important) and ALSO assure all cost of opposing objectors come out of the common fund or must be borne by the plaintiff’s attorneys solely;
3. Plaintiff’s attorneys must decide whether to fight objectors on principle or just pay them off– which is what they are really after. While Greenwald probably feels ok about fighting Dickenson’s lawyers and draining their resources because he has been so successful elsewhere, many attorneys could not afford to go 7 years (or more) to get paid.

Fascinating place is the TCPAWorld.

I’m Nice Czar and I approve this message.

And in just a few hours my niceness will be tested! Troutman Amin, LLP will be breaking down the MASSIVE FTC consent orders entered into by Assurance IQ and Media Alpha for a stunning $145MM in penalties plus grievous non-monetary terms. You MUST attend this if you are in the lead generation space or have any concerns about the FTC in your marketing game.