Consumer Protection Laws

Nursing Homes Will be Barred From Using Arbitration Agreements

November 24, 2016 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Death is a part of life and that’s even more true in certain places of our communities, such as hospitals and nursing homes. It’s expected that most people will die there or shortly after their stay, but there are still plenty of deaths happening in these places that are preventable.

Liability insurance for the medical industry is much higher than other industries because they need to protect themselves from angry family members looking for someone to blame for their loss. Sometimes they’re just lashing out, but all too frequently, the families have a legitimate complaint and now many of them are claiming that nursing homes have been working to keep allegations against them out of the public eye.

Over the past decade or so, an increasing number of businesses, including nursing homes, have been including arbitration agreements in both their employment and service contracts. The result is that it has become nearly impossible for consumers to do anything without signing away their right to take the company to court in the event of a legal dispute.

Arbitration was created as a way for businesses to settle disputes between themselves without cluttering the courts with their lawsuits. It is a private process that is much less formal, and often less neutral, than our current legal system. For example, is common for negotiations to take place in the offices of an attorney representing one of the parties. Continue reading ›

Consumer Protection Bureau Protects Consumers by Banning Forced Arbitration and Class Action Waivers Used by Predatory Lenders

May 11, 2016 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Have you ever wondered if that bank fee or overdraft charge from your bank was legal? If you tried to challenge your bank in a court of law, chances are you found out you had signed an arbitration agreement, which meant you could not settle the dispute in a court of law. Instead, you had to go through arbitration to accuse your bank of charging illegal fees or mismanaging your money.

If you choose to use arbitration, you have to cover all your legal fees yourself, which can quickly reach thousands of dollars. If you believe your bank has illegally taken funds out of your account, the chances are the amount they took was negligible. Three dollars for an overdraft fee may not seem like much, but for some people it can mean passing on a box of groceries. Even if it’s not much for the individual consumer, if the bank is improperly charging these types of fees to a large portion of its customers, it’s probably making a fortune illegally. Continue reading ›

Used Car Fraud Nightmare — We Sue For Flood Cars, Rebuilt Wrecks and Odometer Roll Backs in Court or Arbitration

March 4, 2016 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Consumers often make the mistake of signing away their rights to go to court. Even if you have signed away your rights we pursue crooked auto dealers in arbitration and have won large arbitration judgments or settlements of over $50,000 and even $100,000 for buyers of flooded cars or rebuilt wrecks.

Class Actions Accuse Dollar General of Misleading Consumers by Selling Motor Oil That Only Works on Cars Made After 1998

February 23, 2016 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Millions of car owners use motor oil to keep their engines running smoothly, but buying the wrong oil can do more harm than good.

To many consumers, one brand of motor oil is much like any other brand. But according to a recent consumer class action lawsuit against Dollar General, the discount retailer has been taking advantage of this assumption by selling their own brand of motor oil at a much lower cost than other brands, but there’s a catch.

The fine print on the back of the bottle says the oil is not intended for use in cars made after 1988. Dollar General’s oil is marked as 10W-30 and stored on shelves right next to oil meant for newer vehicles, so many consumers assume there’s no real difference, other than the price. Because Dollar General’s brand is considerably cheaper, many consumers buy it thinking they can use the motor oil in any car, but that’s not actually the case.

Joe Wood, a plaintiff in one of the consumer lawsuits against Dollar General, says his car died after he started using Dollar General’s brand of motor oil.

Tom Glenn, the president of the Petroleum Quality Institute of America, said that he considers Dollar General’s motor oil to be obsolete, because it should only be used on cars 28 years or older. The class action consumer lawsuit likewise called the motor oil obsolete, but Dollar General objected to the use of that word, saying their oil can be used in the millions of cars that were made prior to 1988 that are still on the road. Continue reading ›

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 ›

Sony Settling Class Action Lawsuits for Data Breach

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

In today’s increasingly digital age, it has become easier than ever for hackers to gain access to people’s personal information, leaving them vulnerable to identity theft. Most major credit card companies offer monitoring services to protect customers from fraudulent charges, but they charge an extra fee for these services and many people don’t want to pay the extra fee if they don’t have to.

More often than not, large companies are the targets of cyberattacks, but it’s not usually the company that experiences any negative outcomes from the attacks. Instead, it’s the customers and/or employees whose personal information was compromised in the attack who suffer. The companies rarely experience any consequences of these attacks until someone files a lawsuit against the company for failing to take the proper security measures to protect against these data breaches. Continue reading ›

Appeals Court Affirms Holister Gift Card Class Action Brought By Our Chicago Class Action Attorneys — Our Chicago Class Action Attorneys Fight on Behalf of Consumers Across the Country

May 27, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

The promise of awarding gift cards is just one method retailers sometimes use to lure shoppers into their stores. For example Hollister Co., a clothing retailer, promised consumers who spent $75 or more a $25 gift card in December 2009. The cards themselves allegedly stated they had “no expiration date”, but the retailer allegedly voided all outstanding cards on January 30, 2010.

Our client, Vincent Daniels, one of the owners of an expired gift card, filed a lawsuit against Hollister for the lost value of the gift card. Because $25 is a negligible amount, Daniels sought to represent an entire class of plaintiffs consisting of everyone still in possession of a gift card, or who threw their gift card away because they were told it had expired. Taken together, the value of all the voided gift cards amounts to more than $3 million. Continue reading ›

Used Car Fraud — Odometer Roll-Backs and Certified Used Cars Which Are Actually Rebuilt Wrecks

February 19, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Class Action Brought Against Utility for Alleged Bait and Switch Tactics

January 25, 2015 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Luring customers in with low rates, only to raise those rates once the customer has been acquired, is a common tactic known as bait-and-switch. It is particularly effective in hooking low-income and elderly customers who have a fixed budget because they are most often the people who are on the lookout for the best deal. Unfortunately, when a deal seems like it might be too good to be true, the sad fact is that it usually is.

When ComEd announced earlier this year that it would be raising its rates by 21 percent, the number of people looking for a deal jumped dramatically. Unfortunately, many companies took advantage of this jump by promising low rates. However, because many of these companies are unregulated, they can raise their rates later by as much as they want, when they want. They don’t even have to provide their customers with an explanation for the raise in rates.

ComEd’s rates recently went up from 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to 7.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. A kilowatt-hour is the amount of energy required to power a medium-sized window AC unit for one hour. The average ComEd customer uses 655 kilowatt-hours per month. Despite Starion’s claims that customers can save money by switching to Starion Energy, Starion’s average rate is allegedly 13 cents per kilowatt-hour, almost double ComEd’s price. Continue reading ›

Class Certification Granted in Lawsuit Brought by Identity Theft Victim Against Credit Reporting Agency – Osada v. Experian

July 28, 2013 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

A consumer sought to certify two classes in a lawsuit against a credit reporting agency, after the agency allegedly refused to remove negative information from his credit report that was the result of identity theft. The lawsuit asserted various claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. The court certified one of the two classes in Osada v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., No. 11 C 2856, slip op. (N.D. Ill., Mar. 28, 2012), finding that it met the requirements contained in Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

According to the court’s opinion, the plaintiff learned in late 2008 that unknown parties had taken out two mortgage loans in his name in a total amount greater than $600,000. He contacted the defendant, Experian, regarding how the fraudulent loans would affect his credit report. He also filed a police report, but did not send a copy to Experian. When each mortgage eventually went into foreclosure, the courts handling those matters reportedly realized that identity theft was a factor. The plaintiff submitted an identity theft affidavit to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in late 2009 and wrote to Experian in early 2010 requesting removal of the mortgages from his credit report. He attached the FTC affidavit, the police report, and proof of residence to his request.