Class-Action

Erin Brockovich Isn’t the Only One to Take On Corporate Polluters in a Class Action

January 12, 2016 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Erin Brockovich wasn’t the only one to take on a big company that had harmed thousands of people with poisoned water. Rob Bilott took on DuPont for dumping PFOAs into a local creek, when it knew the chemical had adverse health effects, but Bilott’s background was very different from Brockovich’s.

Bilott spent eight years defending large corporations from allegations of violating environmental protection laws. He ended up on the plaintiff’s side by accident.

Some neighbors of Bilott’s grandmother had referred him to a local farmer whose cattle were getting sick and dying. The farmer had linked it to a landfill next to his property owned by DuPont. The company was dumping perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into the creek that ran through the landfill and the farmer’s land. Because the landfill was upstream from the farm, the cows were drinking poisoned water. Not only did this destroy the farmer’s livelihood, but it was inhumane because the cattle were clearly suffering. Continue reading ›

Class Action Defendants Try to Persuade Supreme Court to Cut Back on 7th Circuit Law Allowing Judges to Create Flexible Methods for Ascertaining Class Membership

January 6, 2016 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

When a plaintiff files a class action lawsuit (usually against a large corporation), she does not have to include a list of every single potential class member along with her complaint. In many class action lawsuits, the plaintiffs are easily identifiable, but not always and it’s the cases in which the class members are harder to identify that defendants have been attacking the plaintiffs.

Consumer class actions are usually pretty straightforward and easy to manage. If a product is defective or doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, most retailers can track the consumers who purchased that particular product and notify them of the class action lawsuit.

The process becomes significantly more difficult when the product in question is a small, inexpensive item. Consumers are less likely to keep their receipts of those purchases and the companies making the product often claim that they don’t have a direct list of customers because they sell through various retailers. They can always alert the public to these class action lawsuits and ask anyone who thinks they may fit the criteria for participating in the class to file a claim, but that’s according to corporate defendants who want to defeat class not always reliable. Defendants have been arguing that these types of class action lawsuits should be dismissed unless the plaintiffs prove they have a reliable method of identifying class members and always find holes in any reasonably reliable plan suggested. Continue reading ›

Costco Service Provider, Club Demonstration Services Settles Alleged Unpaid Overtime Class Action

December 5, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Anyone who has shopped at Costco has seen people spread throughout the store, particularly in the food aisles, giving out samples and demonstrating how appliances work. Although they are a very familiar sight in the giant discount retailer, Costco Wholesale Corp. does not employee these people. Instead, they are supplied by Club Demonstration Services Inc. and Warehouse Demo Services Inc. (the two companies recently merged under the name Club Demonstration Services Inc.).

Selene P. and Cindy C. filed a class action wage and hour lawsuit against their employers for allegedly violating California wage and hour laws. Continue reading ›

Home Depot Data Breach Class Action

November 15, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

More and more consumers these days are buying things with their credit and debit cards, instead of cash, especially large purchases. As a result, many retailers have security systems in place to protect themselves and their customers in the event of a cyber attack. For example, it’s now widely considered common practice to encrypt customers’ credit and debit card numbers.

According to a recent data breach class action lawsuit filed against Home Depot, the retailer allegedly failed to encrypt its customers’ credit card data or take other standard security measures.

Five former computer security employees of Home Depot have come forward to accuse the company of negligence. They allege Home Depot failed to follow basic industry standards, including scanning its customer systems on a regular basis. The retail giant also allegedly used outdated software and used only “C-level security,” claiming upgrades would be too expensive and disruptive to business. Continue reading ›

Schneider National Agrees to $20.5 Million Settlement of Wage and Hour Suit Brought by its Drivers

November 10, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

When a large class action lawsuit is filed, it is often in the best interests of both parties to settle the lawsuit outside of court. Lawsuits can drag on in the courts for years and the larger the lawsuit, the longer the trial is likely to take. The result can turn out to be extremely expensive for both sides.

Defendants often choose to settle class action lawsuits because that allows them to avoid the hassle and expense of fighting a lengthy legal battle in court. You can never predict with 100% accuracy how a jury will rule, so by settling the dispute before it gets to a jury, defendants can avoid a lose, which could seriously damage their business. Settlement also helps the plaintiffs avoid the risk of a loss and collecting no damages and getting no relief from practices that they believe are illegal. Continue reading ›

Spokeo Case Argued Before the Supreme Court — It Could Become the Death Knell For Many Statutory Consumer Claims

November 8, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

By now it’s common knowledge that you shouldn’t believe everything you see on the Internet. At the same time, many people regularly use the Internet to look up information on people, places, and businesses.

One Web directory, Spokeo Inc., is currently facing a lawsuit for posting inaccurate information of Thomas Robins on their website. Robins’s profile on Spokeo listed him as being in his 50s with a graduate degree, employed in a professional or technical field, with very strong economic health, a very high wealth level, and a wife and children.

Although Robins acknowledges his profile did have some accurate information, he says he was unemployed at the time the false information was posted in 2010, he does not have a graduate degree, is not married, has no children, and is not in his 50s. Continue reading ›

Federal Appeals Court Rules that Damages are Sufficient for Data Breach Class Action to Proceed Against Nieman Marcus

November 2, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

The rulings made by appellate courts can affect many decisions to come in rulings made by lower courts all over the country. In a recent data breach lawsuit against Neiman Marcus, the retailer argued the ruling made by the Seventh Circuit Court could have long-term effects on data breach law if the court failed to change its ruling.

The court denied Neiman Marcus’s appeal and let its initial decision stand.

The consumer lawsuit consists of a proposed class of about 350,000 plaintiffs who allegedly suffered financial damages as a result of a security breach of Neiman Marcus’s systems in 2013. The plaintiffs allege the retailer did not take all necessary precautions in preventing or mitigating a security breach that exposed customers’ payment card details. The data breach lawsuit also alleges Neiman Marcus did not notify its customers of the data breach in a timely manner, once the security attack had happened. Continue reading ›

Auto Fraud Class Actions Pile Up Against VW NPR Reports

October 30, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

NPR reports:

MARTIN: This past week, the German car giant Volkswagen admitted to cheating emissions tests with a device built into VW diesel engines. Just hours after the story broke, a Seattle-based law firm filed a consumer class-action suit against Volkswagen. And by Friday, the number of federal suits that had been filed against VW had reached at least 34. That number seems to be climbing. Here to talk through the number of class-action suits is data journalist Mona Chalabi.

Hi, Mona.

CHALABI: Hi, Rachel.

MARTIN: Explain this number. Where did these 34 cases come from?

CHALABI: All over the country, actually. There’s been a bit of a gold rush for this – and I can tell you a little bit about the gold kind of later on. But for now, I just want to explain really quickly what a class-action lawsuit is because it wasn’t completely clear to me. So it’s a type of lawsuit where one or several people sue on behalf of a much larger group. And it’s that larger group that is known as the class. And in the case of Volkswagen, almost 500,000 cars have been recalled in the U.S. alone.

MARTIN: Is there any precedent for this?

CHALABI: Yeah, absolutely. So class-action lawsuits of this kind are sort of common. In 2012, Toyota agreed to pay $1.1 billion to settle a class-action suit to car owners who said they lost money because of a fault in their vehicles. It was a really serious flaw as well. The car actually accelerated automatically, and that fault resulted in at least one death.

MARTIN: As you mentioned, Toyota paid out over a billion dollars. Does that mean that individuals can get big payouts in these kinds of cases?

CHALABI: They can do, but not necessarily. So one plaintiff in that particular case, a computer science student called Jonathan Sourbeer, said he got a check for $20.91 from Toyota for his vehicle flaw. And I think what’s really striking about that is when you compare those sums to what the lawyers are getting. So in that case, there were 85 plaintiff lawyers who, between them, managed to get $227 million in fees and costs from Toyota.

NPR Reports: “Firm Accused Of Illegal Practices That Push Families Into Foreclosure.”

October 14, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

NPR reports:

According to Moody’s Analytics, there were 700,000 foreclosures last year. And some of those people probably didn’t need to lose their homes. Even now, more than six years after the housing crash, lawyers for homeowners say mortgage companies are still making mistakes and foreclosing on homes when they shouldn’t be.

Ocwen Financial Corp. is facing an investigation by regulators and a new lawsuit over its treatment of homeowners facing foreclosures. The class-action suit alleges that Ocwen has been charging marked-up, illegal fees and unfairly pushing homeowners into foreclosure.

Arbitration Agreements May be Banned to Protect Consumers Rights to Pursue Class Actions and Jury Verdicts

October 13, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

The class action lawsuit is a powerful tool for plaintiffs, particularly consumers. The costs associated with filing a lawsuit are too high to justify filing for a small claim, because the cost of the lawsuit would be greater than the potential payout. Class actions address this issue by allowing many plaintiffs with the same, or similar complaints to file one lawsuit together. With enough class members, the combined claims are often more than enough to justify filing a lawsuit. It also provides the plaintiffs with greater leverage against their defendants, who tend to be large corporations with a team of lawyers at their disposal.

Big businesses have been arguing against class actions and trying to make it more difficult for class actions to make it to the courts. One of the ways they have done this is by requiring consumers to sign contracts that include arbitration clauses in which the consumer agrees to settle all disputes with the company in arbitration, which does not allow class actions. Continue reading ›