Case 2:14-cv-01855-GW-GJS Document 123 Filed 05/19/20 Page 1 of 47 Page ID #:6092 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA DONALD M. LUSNAK, on behalf of ) himself and all others similarly situated, ) ) Plaintiffs, ) Case No.: CV 14-1855-GW-GJSx ) v. ) DECLARATION OF CAMERON R. ) AZARI, ESQ. ON BANK OF AMERICA, N.A.; and DOES ) IMPLEMENTATION OF 1 through 10, inclusive, ) SETTLEMENT NOTICE PLAN ) Defendants. ) ) I, Cameron Azari, declare as follows : 1. My name is Cameron R. Azari, Esq. I have personal knowledge of the matters set forth herein, and I believe them to be true and correct. 2. I am a nationally recognized expert in the field of legal notice, and I have served as an expert in dozens of federal and state cases involving class action notice plans. 3. I am the Director of Legal Notice for Hilsoft Notifications, a business unit of Epiq Class Action & Claims Solutions, Inc. (“Epiq”) that specializes in designing, developing, analyzing and implementing, large-scale legal notific atio n plans. 4. This declaration will describe the implementation of the Settlement Notice Plan (“Notice Plan” or “Plan”) and notices (the “Notice” or “Notices”) for the recent settlement in Lusnak v. Bank of America, N.A. et al., Case No. 14-1855-GW-GJSx in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. I previously executed my Declaration of Cameron R. Azari, Esq, Epiq Class Action & Claims Solutions, Inc. on December 27, 2019 (Dkt. 113), in DECLARATION OF CAMERON R. AZARI, ESQ. ON IMPLEMENTATION OF SETTLEMENT NOTICE PLAN Case 2:14-cv-01855-GW-GJS Document 123 Filed 05/19/20 Page 2 of 47 Page ID #:6093 which I detailed Epiq’s and Hilsoft’s class action notice experience and attached Epiq’s firm resume and Hilsoft’s curriculum vitae. I also provided my educational and professional experience relating to class actions and my ability to render opinions on overall adequacy of notice programs. OVERVIEW 5. On January 30, 2020, the Court approved the Notice Plan as designed by Hilsoft and appointed Epiq as the Settlement Administrator in the “Order Granting Preliminary Approval of Class Settlement and Direction of Notice Under Rule 23(E)” (“Preliminary Approval Order”). In the Preliminary Approval Order, the Court provisionally certified, for settlement purposes only, the following “Settlement Class”: All mortgage loan customers of Bank of America—including any customers whose loans were originated by Bank of America, whose loans Bank of America later acquired an ownership interest in, or whose loans Bank of America serviced—whose mortgage loan is for a one- to four-family residence located in California, and who paid Bank of America money in advance for payment of taxes and assessments on the property, for insurance, or for other purposes relating to the property, and did not receive at least 2 percent simple interest per annum on the amounts so held by Bank of America from July 1, 2008 to December 31, 2018. “Bank of America” as used in this definition includes Bank of America Corp., Bank of America, N.A., and their subsidiar ie s or predecessors. Excluded from the Settlement Class will be those persons who submit a timely and valid Request for Exclusion in accordance with the procedures set forth in the Settlement Agreement and in this Preliminary Approval Order. 6. After the Court’s Preliminary Approval Order was entered, we began to implement the Notice Program. This declaration will detail the notice activities undertaken and explain how and why the Notice Plan was comprehensive and well-suited to the Settlement Class. This declaration will also discuss the administration activity to date. The facts in this declaration are DECLARATION OF CAMERON R. AZARI, ESQ. ON IMPLEMENTATION OF SETTLEMENT NOTICE PLAN 2 Case 2:14-cv-01855-GW-GJS Document 123 Filed 05/19/20 Page 3 of 47 Page ID #:6094 based on what I personally know, as well as information provided to me in the ordinary course of my business by my colleagues from Hilsoft and Epiq, who worked with us to implement the notification effort. NOTICE PLAN SUMMARY 7. In class action notice planning, execution, and analysis, we are guided by due process considerations under the United States Constitution and by case law pertaining to the recognized notice standards under Rule 23. Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure directs that the best notice practicable under the circumstances must include “individual notice to all members who can be identified through reasonable effort.”1 The Notice Program here satisfied this requirement and these standards with individual direct notice by mail to all Settlement Class Members on the Settlement Class Member List, as well as individual notice by email to all Settlement Class Members for whom Bank of America had a reasonably available email address. 8. Since the notice mailing happened so recently and remailing efforts are still underway, I will provide the Court with a supplemental declaration prior to the Final Approval Hearing, which will include final statistics on delivered mailed and emailed notice, and the final calculated reach of the Notice Plan as implemented. 9. The Settlement Website and supplemental publication notice further expand the reach of the Notice. In 2010, the Federal Judicial Center issued a Judges’ Class Action Notice and Claims Process Checklist and Plain Language Guide. This Guide states that, “the lynchp in 1 Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(2)(B). DECLARATION OF CAMERON R. AZARI, ESQ. ON IMPLEMENTATION OF SETTLEMENT NOTICE PLAN 3 Case 2:14-cv-01855-GW-GJS Document 123 Filed 05/19/20 Page 4 of 47 Page ID #:6095 in an objective determination of the adequacy of a proposed notice effort is whether all the notice efforts together will reach a high percentage of the class.” 10. It is my opinion that the Notice Program here provides for the best notice practicable under the circumstances of this case, conforms to all aspects of the Rule 23, and comports with the guidance for effective notice set out in the Manual for Complex Litigation 4th Ed. 11. The Notice Program schedule also affords sufficient time to provide full and proper notice to Settlement Class Members well in advance of the opt-out and objection deadlines. CAFA NOTICE 12. As described in the Declaration of Stephanie J. Fiereck, Esq. on Implementation of CAFA Notice, dated March 12, 2020 (“Fiereck Declaration”), Epiq sent a CAFA notice packet (or “CAFA Notice”), on behalf of Defendant Bank of America, N.A., that satisfies the requirements of the federal Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. § 1715, to 60 federal and state offic ia ls on January 6, 2020. The CAFA Notice was mailed by United States Postal Service (“USPS”) certified mail to 56 officials, including the Attorneys General of each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the United States Territories. The Notice was also sent by United Parcel Service (“UPS”) to four officials: the Attorney General of the United States, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Director of the Litigation Group of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), and the OCC’s Examiner-in-Charge for Bank of America, N.A. A copy of the Fiereck Declaration is included as Attachment 1. Individual Notice 13. On April 13, 2020, Epiq received the Settlement Class Member List from the parties, which included 837,372 records. There was a physical mailing address for each of the DECLARATION OF CAMERON R. AZARI, ESQ. ON IMPLEMENTATION OF SETTLEMENT NOTICE PLAN 4 Case 2:14-cv-01855-GW-GJS Document 123 Filed 05/19/20 Page 5 of 47 Page ID #:6096 records and email addresses for some of the records. Epiq de-duplicated the data, which resulted in 742,925 unique Settlement Class Member physical addresses (in some cases, multiple loans on the Settlement Class Member List had the same associated combination of borrower name(s) and mailing address informa tio n). The Settlement Class Member List also included 3,077 facially valid email addresses, representing 2,485 Settlement Class Member records (some records had more than one email address). After duplicates were removed, 2,855 facially valid email addresses remained. Individual Notice – Mail Notice 14. On May 4, 2020, Epiq sent 742,925 Postcard Notices to the Settlement Class Members, at the associated physical mailing addresses listed for them on the Settlement Class Member List as updated through the process described below. The Postcard Notice was an oversized postcard measuring 8.5” x 5”. The Postcard Notice included a tagline in Spanish regarding the availability of a Spanish version of the Notice available at the case website. A copy of the Postcard Notice is included as Attachment 2. 15. Prior to mailing, all mailing addresses were checked against the National Change of Address (“NCOA”) database maintained by the USPS. In addition, the addresses were certified via the Coding Accuracy Support System (“CASS”) to ensure the quality of the zip code, and verified through Delivery Point Validation (“DPV”) to verify the accuracy of the addresses. This address updating process is standard for the industry and for the majority of promotional mailings that occur today. 16. Postcard Notices returned as undeliverable are re-mailed to any new address available through postal service information, for example, to the address provided by the USPS DECLARATION OF CAMERON R. AZARI, ESQ. ON IMPLEMENTATION OF SETTLEMENT NOTICE PLAN 5 Case 2:14-cv-01855-GW-GJS Document 123 Filed 05/19/20 Page 6 of 47 Page ID #:6097 on returned pieces for which the automatic forwarding order has expired, or to better addresses that may be found using a third-party lookup service.