In re Chambers Dev. Sec. Litig.

In re Chambers Dev. Sec. Litig.

Opinion

 [*824] MEMORANDUM OPINION

May 30, 1995

I. INTRODUCTION

The issues before the Court in this multidistrict class action securities litigation are: (i) whether the Court should certify a plaintiffs' class consisting of

All persons who purchased or acquired Chambers Development Company, Inc., securities from March [**8]  18, 1988, through October 20, 1992, inclusive, excluding the defendants herein, officers and directors of Chambers, members of the immediate family of each of the individual defendants and affiliates of the corporate defendants, partners and partnership defendants;

 [*825] (ii) whether the Court should certify a defendant class consisting of 250 some partners of the accounting firm of Grant Thornton; and (iii) whether the proposed settlements of this litigation are fair, adequate and reasonable.

Upon consideration of the testimony and report of the Special Master appointed by the Court to oversee discovery and to monitor and facilitate settlement negotiations, the testimony and report of the independent real estate appraiser appointed by the Court to evaluate certain real estate which is to be transferred as part of the settlements, numerous affidavits of counsel and expert witnesses and others, memoranda and documentary material in support of settlement, and considering the entire record of the litigation with which the Court is intimately familiar, the Court answers an unqualified "Yes" to each of these questions.

On May 19, 1995, this Court conducted a hearing concerning the adequacy,  [**9]  fairness and reasonableness of proposed class actions settlements of all but one of the related cases that have been consolidated for all pretrial purposes and designated as appropriate for multidistrict litigation pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407 and an Order of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation; ¹ the proposed settlements are set forth in the stipulations of settlement filed in the "main class action" at MDL NO. 982, initially filed at Civil Action No. 92-0679 (Lovato, et al v. Chambers Development Company, Inc. et al), and the "derivative action" at Civil Action No. 92-1081 (Yeager, et al v. Rangos, et al) which is part of the main class action.

II. BACKGROUND

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