New York state law has no provision for awarding attorney fees to objectors who improve class action settlements; while most courts recognize the "common fund" aspect of awarding fees, New York courts do not. The absence of statutory authority has meant that class members, who already have little incentive to challenge unfair settlements, do not even have the hope of winning fees. A law has since passed the legislature to fix this loophole; this may be the first explicit statutory authority for class-action objectors to recover fees. [Reuters]