The opinion
NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FEB 13 2026
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
MICHAEL KATZ-LACABE; Dr. No. 24-7648
JENNIFER GOLBECK, on behalf of D.C. No.
themselves and all others similarly situated, 3:22-cv-04792-RS
Plaintiffs - Appellees,
MEMORANDUM*
SARAH FELDMAN,
Objector - Appellant,
v.
ORACLE AMERICA, INC., a corporation
organized under the laws of the State of
Delaware,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Richard Seeborg, Chief District Judge, Presiding
Submitted February 10, 2026**
San Francisco, California
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
Before: GOULD, FRIEDLAND, and MILLER, Circuit Judges.
Objector Sarah Feldman appeals the district court’s final approval of a
settlement in a class action against Oracle America, Inc., alleging that Oracle
violated federal, California, and Florida privacy laws in its collection of consumer
data. Feldman argues that the district court did not adequately evaluate the risks of
continued litigation and abused its discretion in approving an allocation plan that
compensated all class members equally. We review the district court’s order
approving a settlement for clear abuse of discretion. See In re Hyundai & Kia Fuel
Econ. Litig., 926 F.3d 539, 556 (9th Cir. 2019) (en banc). We have jurisdiction
under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
1. The district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the
settlement is “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2). Before
approving a settlement, “[t]he district court must show it has explored
comprehensively all [Rule 23(e)(2)] factors, and must give a reasoned response to
all non-frivolous objections.” Allen v. Bedolla, 787 F.3d 1218, 1223–24 (9th Cir.
2015) (quoting Dennis v. Kellogg Co., 697 F.3d 858, 864 (9th Cir. 2012)). The
district court’s approval order addressed each of the required factors and concluded
that they favored approval of the settlement. The district court specifically
responded to and rejected Feldman’s objections.
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Feldman argues that the district court did not adequately assess whether the
“relief provided for the class is adequate,” considering “the costs, risks, and delay
of trial and appeal.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2)(C)(i). That is so, she says, because “it
is reasonable to assume” that the district court’s approval of the settlement must
have been based in part on the risk that aggregated statutory damages awarded at
trial would be reduced on a post-trial motion, yet the court did not specifically
evaluate that risk. The district court was not required to do so. A settlement
inherently requires “a yielding of absolutes and an abandoning of highest hopes,”
and judging whether that compromise is a fair one requires “an amalgam of
delicate balancing, gross approximations and rough justice.” Officers for Just. v.
Civil Serv. Comm’n, 688 F.2d 615, 624–25 (9th Cir. 1982) (first quoting Cotton v.
Hinton, 559 F.2d 1326, 1330 (5th Cir. 1977); and then quoting City of Detroit v.
Grinnell Corp., 495 F.2d 448, 468 (2d Cir. 1974)). We have accordingly “never
prescribed a particular formula” by which a settlement’s fairness must be tested.
Rodriguez v. West Publ’g Corp., 563 F.3d 948, 965 (9th Cir. 2009). And district
courts must “evaluate the fairness of a settlement as a whole, rather than assessing
its individual components.” Lane v. Facebook, Inc., 696 F.3d 811, 818–19 (9th Cir.
2012).
The district court comprehensively analyzed the litigation risks that justified
discounting the settlement amount. Although plaintiffs’ claims, if successful, could
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result in a large award of statutory damages, the district court recognized that
“further litigation would likely be complex, expensive, lengthy, and risky.” As the
court explained, the novelty of plaintiffs’ claim—and the court’s previous finding
that the claims just “‘barely’ survived dismissal”—justified the litigation discount.
The transcripts of the preliminary and final approval hearings make it apparent that
the district court was primarily concerned with those risks, not with a potential
post-trial reduction in statutory damages under Wakefield v. ViSalus, Inc., 51 F.4th
1109 (9th Cir. 2022). Although Feldman speculates that the possibility of a post-
trial reduction in aggregated statutory damages surely “played into the district
court’s approval,” the simpler explanation is that the district court was concerned
with the more immediate and more significant risks it discussed in its order. The
district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to address possible due-
process damages limits that were not central to its assessment of the fairness of the
settlement.
2. The district court did not abuse its discretion in approving an allocation
plan that would distribute settlement funds equally to all claimants. Feldman
argues that “California Class members and Florida Class members possess
significantly more valuable claims” and should therefore receive “all or most of the
settlement proceeds.” But there is no California Class or Florida Class (or subclass)
here—the district court certified only one nationwide class, and Feldman has not
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challenged the certification of that class. The fact that some class members may
have more valuable claims “does not cast doubt on the district court’s conclusion
as to the fairness and adequacy of the overall settlement amount to the class as a
whole.” Lane, 696 F.3d at 824 (emphasis omitted). Class members with more
valuable claims could have chosen to opt out of the settlement class, see Fed. R.
Civ. P. 23(c)(2)(B)(v), but “[t]heir presence does not in itself render the settlement
unfair,” Lane, 696 F.3d at 824.
AFFIRMED.
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