Posts Tagged ‘ Class Action Lawsuit ’

LAS Newsletter: Top Legal News, Free Delivery, Every Week

April 2nd, 2012. By AbiK

Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to keep up on the latest legal news: class action lawsuits, lawsuit settlements, mass tort litigation, securities fraud lawsuits, and more.

The LawyersandSettlements.com newsletter is published weekly, and delivered free to your inbox.

This week’s top legal news: class action lawsuits for CarMax, GoDaddy, Dial Soap, Medicus Golf, Reebok Toning Shoes, Google Privacy, Yo-Plus Yogurt, Harley Davidson, and the Honda Hybrid.

Also, an update on Yasmin and Yaz lawsuits—what’s going on with talk of Bayer Yaz settlements and what does it mean for claimants?

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Tags: Class Action Lawsuit, Lawsuit Settlement, Legal News, Mass Tort, Newsletter, Securities lawsuit
Posted in Class Action, lawsuits, Personal Injury, Settlement | No Comments »

Beauty Blemish: Avon et al Piss Off PETA, Face Class Action Lawsuit

March 6th, 2012. By AbiK

You’d think Avon would have enough on its vanity right now with those alleged Avon bribery charges in overseas markets and that CEO search they’ve got going on. But, in true hit-’em-when-they’re-down fashion, Avon—along with Mary Kay and Estee Lauder—has just been hit with class action charges—for deceptive and misleading conduct in “marketing, selling, promoting and distributing cosmetic products in the United States”.

More specifically, the newly filed class action is going after the makeup companies’ ‘no animal testing’ claims. (Before we go on, please note, no animals were harmed in the photoshopping of the above image.)

The false advertising class action lawsuit was filed by lead plaintiff Marina Beltran (Beltran et al. v. Estee Lauder, et al., United States District Court – Central District of California, Case No. SA12-CV312 CJC (ANX)) on February 28, 2012. Beltran and her co-lead plaintiffs claim Avon, Estee Lauder and Mary Kay engaged in animal testing on their products even though they advertised that they were “cruelty-free”. The court documents also state that the beauty companies conducted animal testing in order “sell products in China and other foreign countries, thereby reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.” (Wait a minute—China? Wasn’t China the major focus of that Avon bribery investigation?)

The filed court documents state that the “Defendants later purported to disclose, at least on their websites, that they in fact were animal testing, but the disclosures were wholly inadequate and deceptive.”

Not one to sit on the sidelines where animal cruelty is concerned, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has kicked the companies off its “cruelty free” list, though I imagine that for Avon, that downgrade hasn’t had quite the same sting as the downgrades given to AVP stock by some analysts recently. When it rains, it pours.

Actually, the PETA downgrade is key to the animal testing class action—the court documents state that because Avon, Estee Lauder and Mary Kay had been granted a cherished spot on PETA’s “cruelty free” list, the companies benefited financially—i.e., customers who proactively sought out cosmetic products that were not tested on animals would refer to PETA’s list and patronize those companies on the list.

It’s estimated that the class size for this one is in excess of 1,000,000 members—and the makeup company animal testing class action lawsuit is seeking compensatory damages of $100M.

Tags: Animal Testing, Avon Products, Class Action Lawsuit, Cruelty Free, Estee Lauder, Mary Kay, PETA
Posted in Class Action, Consumer Fraud, Emerging Issues | 12 Comments »

Gambling for Justice: Class Action Lawsuit v. Small Claims Court, Place Your Bets

January 13th, 2012. By AbiK

It’s a well-chronicled sentiment: class action lawsuit lawyers get rich on attorneys’ fees and the little guy gets stiffed. Whether true or not—and there are arguments on both sides—it’s easy to see how a settlement check for $1.13 can make a plaintiff feel like ‘thanks, but no thanks’. And that brings us to the case of Heather Peters, who is suing Honda in small claims court over her claim that Honda engaged in false advertising when it stated her 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid had a 50 MPG rating.

Small claims court? Isn’t that only for some kind of ‘my boyfriend split with my smart phone and $800 I had under the mattress” type of reality tv show crap?

Well, no—and that’s the point—or calculated bet—Peters is trying to make. See, according to the Honda Civic Hybrid Class Action lawsuit proposed settlement FAQ, each class member would receive $100 as settlement. Peters, who is a former attorney herself, deems that a bit of a paltry sum and so she took the route that most of us do not and she chose to opt out of the proposed settlement. And, in turn, she took her complaint to small claims court.

What’s intriguing about her choice is that, not only can she seek up to $10,000—the new 2012 limit set for small claims in California where the complaint is being heard—but, if she can persuade enough 2003-2009 Honda Civic Hybrid owners to follow suit (no pun) and head to small claims court, she estimates that Honda would be liable for nearly $2 billion—vs the current liability they face coming out of the class action lawsuit in which each class member would receive $100.

Talk about power to the people—if only the people took to the power—by February 11, 2012—the date by which class members’ opt out requests to the Settlement Administrator need to be postmarked.

At issue in the Honda Civic Hybrid Class Action lawsuit is not just that advertised miles per gallon (MPG) ratings for the car were misrepresented, but also—and here’s where a subclass of class members enters into the picture, to which Peters also belongs—that for model years 2006-2008, Honda Civic Hybrid (HCH) owners were told their cars needed a software update to the Integrated Motor Assist (“IMA”) battery system.

What HCH owners didn’t know—and American Honda Motor Co. apparently did not disclose—was that allegedly, in order to install the update, the result would be a negative impact on fuel economy. Not ideal when the primary reason you purchased the car was for its fuel economy.

You can start to see where $100 per claimant—worth what? a couple of tank fills?—isn’t sounding like much.

So Peters is placing her bets on small claims court. But as stated earlier, it’s a bit of a calculated bet for her–she’s done, and doing her homework. Just see her website. And she says that anyone can do the same.

But would you?

Prepping for small claims court, sans an attorney of course as that’s part of the charm of small claims court—no lawyers allowed—takes time. And, you do have to have the ability to put together a pretty darn good case, particularly if you’re taking on a major corporation. Given that, it comes down to whether you think it’s worth it, or not. And that’s probably why so many of us sit back and await whatever settlement check we receive.

You have to admire Peters though. She’s up for a fight, and she’s got a pretty good one from the looks of it—perhaps even a new profession in behind-the-scenes small claims coaching. And, at least she is not just sitting back and complaining about attorneys’ fees—she’s trying to take a stand, both literally and figuratively.

Peters’ next hearing date is January 25.

Tags: American Honda Motor Co, Class Action Lawsuit, Consumer Fraud, false advertising, HCH, Heather Peters, Honda Civic Class Actin Lawsuit, Honda Civic Hybrid, MPG, Small Claims Court
Posted in Class Action, Consumer Fraud, Emerging Issues | 1 Comment »

CL&P Class Action Filed for Storm Response

November 15th, 2011. By AbiK

If there’s an award for the most “Aw, shucks” spirit when it comes to being on the receiving end of some slight, mishap or wrongdoing, it goes to some business owners in Granby and East Granby, CT, who seemingly don’t feel that the CL&P response to the recent storm outages was inadequate.

Yes, there’s something to be said for having a nonchalant approach to whatever life throws your way. Probably good for one’s blood pressure and risk of stroke. That’s the plus side of the coin—but as always, there’s a flip side to that coin and in this instance the flip side equates mediocrity.

Remember that recent end-of-October snowstorm that unexpectedly hammered the northeast? Remember reading about the millions of home and business owners who were stranded with out power for days on end? Well, a funny thing happened. Those folks (most of them) who were supported by companies like PSE&G in NJ found themselves with restored power within three days of the outage; in fact, PSE&G reported to its customers on November 1st that service had been restored to almost 90 percent of those who’d been affected by the storm.

That’s right. Ninety percent in three days.

And how many customers had power restored within three days in Connecticut? Well, if you go with reports that indicated some 955,000 Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) customers lost power due to the storm and that as of November 1st only 275,000 had their power restored, that comes to about twenty-nine percent.

On a personal level, here at LawyersandSettlements.com, some of our staff is based in NJ and some in CT. Our NJ team was up and running at full speed again by Tuesday morning—so they were powerless for just over two days. Our CT team was still charging up smartphones in their cars and running over to Starbuck’s to hop on the wifi there. Until Saturday afternoon—November 5th. They went a week without power, without heat.

Now, there are plenty of folks in CT who are riled up about this—it’s been all over the news with CT Governor Malloy demanding a full in-depth review of CL&P’s response. There has also been a class action lawsuit filed (by Scott Simmons who owns a hair salon in Canton) that seeks $1,000 in damages. But it’s not about the money—according to an article at The Farmington Patch, it’s about finding out why CL&P’s response was so lousy.

And that brings us to our “Aw, shucks” award. According to a recent article over at The Granbys Patch, some business owners don’t see the need for a class action lawsuit. And maybe they’re right…had the CL&P response been anywhere in the ballpark of CT’s neighboring states. But it wasn’t.

Here’s an example, from The Granbys Patch,  of that “aw, shucks” sentiment about the situation—from business owner Lori Love who owns Granby Village Health:

When asked, however, if she is thinking of joining the class action lawsuit, Love replied, “Unequivocally, no.” 

“Did anyone take a look at the number of trees down?” Love asked rhetorically. “Nobody can criticize for one minute how hard CL&P [employees] have worked. People are just looking for someone to blame and be angry at. 

“What if they had emergency crews on standby? What would that do to our rates? There’s no point [to joining a lawsuit]. It doesn’t serve a purpose. Let’s just get things fixed and move on and get paid back from the insurance company, to which I pay a monthly premium.”

No one can criticize how hard CL&P employees have worked? How about how hard the management there has “worked”? And why were NJ residents—who were afflicted with just as many trees and power lines down—having their power restored so quickly compared to CT? Something doesn’t seem right, right?

And what about the “Let’s just get things fixed and move on and get paid back from the insurance company” bit? Hey, I’m sure everyone’s for moving on and putting this mess in the rearview mirror. But, does anyone really think that without any impetus—say, a lawsuit or official investigation—that CL&P is just going to invest in some Six Sigma deep dive to review and improve its emergency response processes? Yeah, right. Oh, and your insurance check is in the mail, too.

CL&P barely hit the mark of mediocrity on this one. And it was glaring because it’s as if someone set up—quite serendipitously—an A/B test in which CT was “A” and NJ was “B” and the variable being tested was what power company was involved. Kind of hard to hide behind the “unusual circumstances” of the storm then.

So CL&P has some explaining to do. And if a class action lawsuit provides some motivation, so be it.

By the way, as of this writing, CL&P had announced the establishment of a storm fund to help reimburse customers for reported losses. The fund was set at $10 million. You do the math—based on the reported 955,000 customers who were powerless, that would come to $10.47 per customer. You can bet that $10.47 will go a long way to compensating folks for all the food they had to ditch once it got beyond that “safe for 48 hours” window.

Regardless, for those CT residents who would like to participate in a survey that ostensibly will be used to establish how CL&P’s storm fund will be distributed, you can do so at the United Way of Connecticut 211 website. The link to the survey is here.

Tags: CL&P, Class Action Lawsuit, Connecticut Light & Power, CT, NJ, Power Outage, PSE&G, Storm Response
Posted in Class Action, Emerging Issues | 1 Comment »

Oreck Vacuum Class Action, Again (Oreck Air Purifier, too)

October 26th, 2011. By AbiK

 

Third time’s a charm? Seems we’ve been covering the Oreck germ-killing claim filings for a while now—indeed, we were posting about it back in 2007 when a lawsuit was filed claiming that an Oreck air purifier did not alleviate allergy symptoms (that one was thrown out).

Then just last spring we posted about the Oreck class action lawsuit—Ruscitti v. Oreck Corporation 1:11-cv-03121. In that one, plaintiffs allege Oreck made false claims regarding the Oreck Halo vacuum’s ability to kill germs; specifically, to “kill and reduce virtually all bacteria, viruses, germs, mold, and allergens that exist on carpets and floor surfaces”. You can read our interview with the plaintiffs’ attorney on that one, too.

The Oreck Halo apparently claimed to use UV light to knock out those bad germs. Pictures of the vacuum in use conjure up a scene straight out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind—clearly the Halo designer must’ve had a childhood fixation with the flick (see separated at birth image above—seriously).

Aside from whatever the inspiration was for the vacuum, it’s the advertising that’s at issue. As the ad at right depicts, the Oreck Halo was touted with the headline, “When the light is on, the germs are gone” —and there’s that graphic of the sideways bracket under the word “Kills” that just hangs there as if to literally suck all those bad viruses, mites, bacteria…right up off the ad itself. Why, this would be an asthmatics dream, right?

Wrong—and the FTC didn’t think so either…

In the midst of all these lawsuits, the FTC came down on Oreck for false and deceptive health claims, which led to Oreck coughing up a fine of $750k last May. Oreck, as a quick web search confirms, also stopped selling the Halo vacuum. (They do still sell Oreck Halo vacuum bags, though—for those who’d already drank, or bought, the Kool-Aid®).

Ok, so now we’re at number three…

Another Oreck class action lawsuit has been filed—just last Friday—in California seeking over $5 million in damages. What are the damages you ask? Well, again, it’s about false claims regarding the Halo and Oreck’s ProShield air purifier and their ability to kill germs. Rewind that tape…here’s the heart of the matter straight from the lawsuit: “Defendants’ claims are not adequately supported by credible, scientific testing or other substantiation and are not true”.

The plaintiffs in the new Oreck Halo class action are Roxy Edge of Los Angeles, CA and Linda Gonzalez of Broome County, NY.

Tags: Class Action Lawsuit, Oreck, Oreck Air Purifier, Oreck germ-killing vacuum, Oreck Halo class action, Oreck vacuum lawsuit, oreck-uv-light-flu-fighter-class-action
Posted in Class Action, Consumer Fraud, Defective Products, Emerging Issues, lawsuits | 4 Comments »