Articles Posted in Class-Action

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New science is always coming out to tout the benefits of this or that new drug or supplement. Recently, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) has been touted as instrumental for maintaining a healthy brain. DHA is an omega-3 fatty acid that constitutes a primary structural component of the human brain, as well as other vital organs. As a result, drug companies have started including it in their supplements and advertising their products as having the ability to boost brain health and performance based on their inclusion of DHA.

For example, Bayer Healthcare allegedly advertised their Flintstones Healthy Brain Support Gummies as improving brain function because the gummies contain Omega-3 DHA. Liza Gershman has filed a class action consumer lawsuit against Bayer alleging there is no scientific evidence to support the assertion that DHA improves brain function. To back up this claim, Gershman sites five studies that found no significant difference between a placebo and DHA derived from algae (the same form of DHA used in Bayer’s supplements) on cognitive function. Continue reading ›

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The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has strict standards for prescription drugs before they can be sold to the public. They must undergo rigorous testing to validate their ingredients and effectiveness before being allowed to go to market.

Not everyone wants to take prescription drugs though. Many people prefer to first try natural alternatives, and that often includes supplements. Other people use supplements simply to make sure they are getting enough of the proper nutrients if they think their diet might be lacking. Either way, there’s plenty of money to be made in the supplements industry, and that opportunity, coupled with a lack of regulations, creates a strong temptation for some manufacturers to cheat.

When there’s big money to be made, there are usually people in place to make sure nothing interferes. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, for example, was a sponsor and chief architect of the 1994 law exempting supplements from the FDA’s strict approval process used for prescription drugs. Hatch has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the supplement industry and repeatedly intervened in Washington against proposed legislation that would put in place more stringent rules regarding supplements. Continue reading ›

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Communicating with other people is arguably the only reason we own and maintain phones. As soon as cell phones became widely available, text messages became a primary means of communication between friends and family. It is therefore understandable that a cell phone user would become upset if prevented from accessing her text messages. This is allegedly the case with people who had an iPhone and switched to an Android or another non-iOS phone.

According to a recent class action lawsuit against Apple, the company allegedly prevented iMessages from being delivered to non-iOS phones, even though the sender of the message would see the status of the message as “Delivered”. Instead of going to the recipient’s new phone, the messages were being rerouted to their iMessage account.

Apple has released a statement saying that the best way to avoid the problem is for users to deactivate their iMessage account and completely disassociate their number from their iMessage account. That is not stopping Adrienne Moore from pursuing her class action lawsuit against the tech giant.

Moore alleges that Apple’s message blocking interfered with her contract with Verizon Wireless for wireless service, which she kept after switching from an iPhone 4 to a Samsung Galaxy S5. She alleges that Apple interfered with her contract with Verizon because her contract allowed her to send and receive text messages, which Apple allegedly prohibited. Continue reading ›

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The Fair Credit Reporting Act was enacted in 1970 to protect consumers from being unfairly denied a mortgage, rental apartment, or job based on incorrect credit histories. With the advent and growth of the Internet and social media, the Act has all sorts of applications that its creators could never have dreamed of.

Although, like most social media, LinkedIn provides many of its services for free, it also offers a service call “Reference Search” to its premium account holders who pay a monthly fee. This service allows an employer or recruiter to generate a list of people in its own network who worked at the same company at the same time as a job candidate. It also allows premium members to contact the people who appear on those lists using the site’s messaging system. All this can be done without the job candidate ever knowing.

Tracee Sweet, the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit against LinkedIn, applied for a job at a hotel chain via the social media site. She claims she was denied the job because the hotel company, without telling her in advance, used the site’s reference search to locate references on her.

Joseph Roualdes, a spokesman for LinkedIn, said the company takes its member privacy very seriously and that it intends to fight the lawsuit, which it insists has no merit. He said that, “A reference search, which is only available to premium account holders, simply lets a searcher locate people in their network who have worked at the same company during the same time period as a member they would like to learn more about. … A reference search does not reveal that member’s nonpublic information.” Continue reading ›

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Many people believe that decisions made in courtrooms have little to do with anyone other than the people directly involved in the lawsuits, but that is not the case. When courts make a ruling, they have to consider not only the circumstances of the case before them, but how their ruling will affect other people in similar situations across the country.

One example of people misunderstanding the far-reaching implications of court decisions is right-wingers claiming that class action lawsuits are “frivolous” because they only benefit the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. People might assume this because the plaintiffs’ attorneys often take large cuts settlements and awards from class action lawsuits, while each individual plaintiff’s award is relatively small, but that doesn’t mean the rulings don’t benefit the plaintiffs or others. Just because a plaintiff suffers damage less than the cost of bringing a lawsuit, does not mean that their loss is insubstantial. For many people, a few hundred dollars could mean months of savings. Not to mention the numerous injunctions that come out of class actions, preventing future harm coming to any workers or consumers. Continue reading ›

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Does Red Bull really give you wings? According to two recent consumer class action lawsuits against the maker of the energy drink, it does not. Although most of us don’t consider it a basis for a lawsuit when we fail to grow wings after drinking Red Bull, the lawsuits do allege that Red Bull’s advertisements violate a number of New York state laws.

The energy company creates advertisements claiming that the drink improves “performance, concentration and reaction speed”. However, according to the class action lawsuits, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that the ingredients in a can of Red Bull provide “any more benefit to consumers than a caffeine tablet or cup of coffee.” The lawsuits, which were filed in New York City, are seeking compensation for damages lost for consumers who paid a higher price for Red Bull’s products than they would have paid for “simpler and less expensive caffeine-only products”. Continue reading ›

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When buying a car, there are many aspects to consider before deciding what to buy. Aside from cost, car buyers tend to be most concerned with safety and performance. No one wants to drive a car they don’t feel safe in. The reputation of the company making the car is also a factor, but when a car company sacrifices the safety of its vehicles to maintain its reputation, it can lose big in the long run.

Such is allegedly the case with GM, which, according to a recent class action lawsuit, allegedly failed to recall faulty vehicles the company allegedly knew were unsafe to drive. The lawsuit accuses GM of being overly concerned with cutting costs and making a profit, a factor that allegedly resulted in the neglect of the safety of its cars.  GM denies the claims.

The lawsuit is petitioning the court for consolidation of 68 cases from around the country on behalf of owners of newer-model GM cars. The lawsuit is seeking compensation for car owners for the lost value of their cars that allegedly resulted from the safety issues coming to light. According to the complaint, the “new GM” that emerged after the 2009 bankruptcy “produced an inordinate number of vehicles with serious safety defects,” which it allegedly ignored until 2014, when it recalled about 27 million vehicles in the United States.

The lawsuit only covers cases of alleged economic loss involving cars bought or leased after July 10, 2009, the day GM emerged from bankruptcy, because the company’s restructuring agreement protects it from liability claims that stem from incidents before that date. GM is currently petitioning Judge Robert E. Gerber, who presided over the company’s bankruptcy proceedings, to enforce that provision by dismissing the pre-bankruptcy cases. Continue reading ›

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Companies often invest a lot of money in the products they sell, especially new products that have recently been released. They spend money on advertising and they sometimes train employees in retail stores to conduct demonstrations of their new product.

One company that recently launched a new product and talked it up in Home Depot stores is Rust-Oleum Corp. and their product was Restore. Restore was sold as a liquid armor coating that could be applied to wooden decks or room-swept concrete surfaces. According to a recent class action lawsuit though, Restore did not act as the protective coating it was advertised to be. Instead, the product allegedly peeled off surfaces, leaving them exposed.

The lawsuit was filed by Ulbardo Fernandez, who purchased the product at Home Depot. He alleges that Restore was advertised as being a “smart alternative” to replacing decks and concrete. Fernandez allegedly decided to purchase Restore as a result of the advertisement he saw for it in Home Depot. Continue reading ›

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Under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), defendants in a class action lawsuit are able to have the case moved to federal court. This law was enacted to prevent plaintiffs from “forum shopping”, or filing their lawsuit in the court that they knew would be most favorable to their side. There are limits to the law though. If the claims of a class action lawsuit amount to less than $5 million, or if at least two thirds of the class members are residents of one state, then the lawsuit can proceed in a district court of that state.

According to a recent ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the plaintiff bears the burden of providing evidence that allows the court to determine the citizenship of the putative class members as of the date that the case was removed to federal court. The ruling came out of a class action lawsuit that was filed against an Illinois insurance company for allegedly violating relevant state laws when it pulled out of the market in 2002 and cancelled all of its policies. The defendants had the case removed to federal court, but the plaintiffs argued that it belonged in Illinois state courts under the home-state exemption.

The plaintiffs argue that the lawsuit belongs in Illinois state court based on the fact that the defendants’ policy was offered only to people who represented that they lived in Illinois or, for group policies, to employers who represented that most of their beneficiaries lived in Illinois. The plaintiffs assert that, assuming that former policyholders left Illinois at the normal rate of 2% per year since 2002, about 87% of the putative class members were Illinois residents when the case was removed to federal court. Continue reading ›

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The courts of the United States have seen an exponential rise in the number of wage and hour lawsuits that get filed every year, but the cause of this rise is unclear. Worker advocates allege that “wage theft” has become far too prevalent in our nation’s current economy. Many blame the recent recession, which pressured employers to cut corners in order to save costs. At the same time, employees were afraid of losing their jobs and being unable to find new employment. The result was that employers took advantage of the situation to get more work out of their employees while paying them less. It is only since the job market started to stabilize that employees have felt confident enough to file lawsuits against their employers.

Business advocates tell a different story. They assert that government officials are creating large numbers of wage and hour lawsuits, mostly so they can score points with the unions. They point to the fact that the recent wage and hour lawsuit against Schneider Logistics coincided with unions pressuring Walmart to raise wages. Although Schneider does store merchandise for Walmart, it is not owned by Walmart, and Walmart is not responsible for Schneider’s employment practices. Despite this fact, the lawyers and labor groups involved in the lawsuit against Schneider have sought to make Walmart jointly liable in the labor violations.

Business groups also claim that the onslaught of wage and hour lawsuits against McDonald’s has been coordinated with the recent movement by fast-food workers demanding a $15 minimum wage. Continue reading ›

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