A group of big tech companies, including Apple, Google, Adobe, and Intel, recently settled a lawsuit over their "no poach" agreement for $324 million. The CEOs of those companies had agreed not to do "cold call" recruiting of each others' engineers until they were busted by the Department of Justice, which saw the deal as an antitrust violation.

The government action was followed up by a class-action lawsuit from the affected workers, who claimed the deal suppressed their wages. That lawsuit settled in April, just before a trial that could have been embarrassing for the tech companies.

One of the lead plaintiffs, a former Adobe employee named Michael Devine, has vocally dissented from the deal. Devine claims the deal is convenient for the lawyers, but an injustice to the workers, who won't get even one percent of their salaries for the period in question.

Devine's dissent is a final, but serious, obstacle to the settlement. At a hearing today, US District Judge Lucy Koh indicated she is listening to his opposition.

Koh told the attorneys pushing the deal that she has "concerns about whether this is really fair to the class," according to a Reuters report from today's hearing.

A lawyer representing the plaintiffs said it was a reasonable deal and that the class of more than 60,000 tech workers would have faced "very, very real risks" at trial and on appeal. It was the largest antitrust employee deal ever reached "by far," he told the judge.

On the defense side, Google lawyer Robert Van Nest pointed out that the defendant companies were paying more on a per-worker basis than the companies that had already settled out of the case, which included Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar.

"This number is right in the sweet spot of what is not only fair, but a premium over that settlement," Van Nest said, according to a report from IDG News.

Devine believes the settlement could have been much better. His lawyer told Bloomberg News that the workers' settlement averages $3,572 each, but if they had gone to trial and won, damages could have been as high as $141,331 each.

Koh said she hasn't yet made a decision about what to do about the objection. The next hearing in the case is set for November.

Outside of the courtroom today, Devine told a reporter from the San Jose Mercury News he has no intention of backing off.

"A lot of people care about this case, so I'm not surprised by all the reaction to my letter," Devine said. "I can't predict the likelihood of what may or may not happen now, but I have confidence in the judge."