A check for $8 arrived in the mail today from Chase Bank. It is my share of a settlement in a federal class action lawsuit that claimed the bank built inconvenience and fees into a debit card used to make DC juror service payments so that money on the cards would default to the bank.

The settlement called for the two jurors who filed the initial court complaints to receive $5,000 each for their trouble, with more than $300,000 going to the lawyers for theirs. My check covered a $4 travel per diem for two days of jury duty in 2016, money I never collected because the debit card was more trouble than it was worth and I presumed it would be a taxpayer’s tip to the court, not the bank.

An intricate fee schedule came with the Chase Bank debit card: out of network ATM cash withdrawal, $2.00; over the counter bank or credit union withdrawal, $7.00; ATM balance inquiry, 45 cents; declined point of sale transaction, 25 cents; and an inactivity fee, $1.50. The fees all had been approved by the U.S. Treasury Department, according to Chase Bank’s lawyers.

The debit card arrangement in DC was not unique. The settlement, reached in April 2018, also involved jurors in Georgia, Texas and Michigan. Jurors in Norfolk, Va., faced a similar scenario with a SunTrust Bank debit card, which prompted an inquiry by a judge, according to a 2016 article in The Virginian-Pilot.

(See, Chase Bank To Repay DC Jurors In Debit Card Fees Fight, which provides details about the U.S. Treasury Department’s role and denial of Freedom of Information Act requests for explanation of the debit card program.)