852
Opinion of the Court
Settlement value is not always acceptable, however. One may take a settlement amount as good evidence of the maximum available if one can assume that parties of equal knowledge and negotiating skill agreed upon the figure through arms-length bargaining, unhindered by any considerations tugging against the interests of the parties ostensibly represented in the negotiation. But no such assumption may be indulged in this case, or probably in any class action settlement with the potential for gigantic fees.30 In this case, certainly, any assumption that plaintiffs' counsel could be of a mind to do their simple best in bargaining for the benefit of the settlement class is patently at odds with the fact that at least some of the same lawyers representing plaintiffs and the class had also negotiated the separate settlement of 45,000 pending claims, 90 F. 3d, at 969-970, 971, the full payment of which was contingent on a successful Global Settlement Agreement or the successful resolution of the insurance coverage dispute (either by litigation or by agreement, as eventually occurred in the Trilateral Settlement Agreement), id., at 971, n. 3; App. 119a-120a. Class counsel thus had great incentive to reach any agreement in the global settlement negotiations that they thought might survive a Rule 23(e) fairness hearing, rather than the best possible arrangement for the substantially unidentified global settlement class. Cf. Cramton, Individualized Justice, Mass
ment Agreement would be available to class claims. In re Asbestos Litigation, 90 F. 3d, at 982. The Court of Appeals provided no explanation for using the higher figure in light of the District Court's conclusion that only $1.535 billion of the $2 billion Trilateral Settlement Agreement figure would actually be available to the class. Either way, the figure represented only the amount the insurance companies agreed to pay, and not an independent evaluation of the limits of their payment obligations.
30 In a strictly rational world, plaintiffs' counsel would always press for the limit of what the defense would pay. But with an already enormous fee within counsel's grasp, zeal for the client may relax sooner than it would in a case brought on behalf of one claimant.
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