Week Adjourned Archive
Week Adjourned: 3.12.10
March 12th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Net Taxes Paid? Well, seems like they shouldn’t a been. AT&T is facing a class action lawsuit—and no you’re not experiencing déjà vu—this lawsuit is over allegations that the Internet access fees the company charges its smart phone customers is in violation of the law.
Apparently, the boffins that make law up on the hill had a flash of wisdom years ago, and made it illegal for taxes to be collected on internet access service. Of course, there were no such things as smart phones when the Internet Tax Freedom Act came into being in 1998. Nevertheless, it has been updated several times and suffice to say is good until 2014.
Apparently, the suit states that AT&T’s Internet access tax is listed as a separate line item on monthly bills. Naughty, naughty. Actually, really naughty—one media report states that “AT&T says in a court filing that 40 class-action suits have been filed in 37 separate districts.”
If you had to pay tax for internet access on top of all the other charges tacked on to your phone package, would you bother with the service?
Top Settlements
Dying to lose weight? Be careful what you wish for. Very sadly, a young woman who signed up to shed the extra pounds through LA Weight Loss Centers Inc, subsequently died from liver failure as a result of taking some diet supplements that had not been tested or regulated by the FDA, but were apparently recommended by the ‘professionals’ at LA WLC.
Pamela Hoppe’s sister brought a lawsuit against LA WLC on behalf of Pamela’s estate. The suit was settled out of court for $700,000, half of which will be split between Pamela’s two surviving children.
Freight Co. Older and Wiser Now, Too? This case reminds me of that wonderful film “Up in The Air”…the story line part…not George Clooney, sadly. Mr. Donald Wayne Smith was laid off by his employer, Central Freight Lines Inc, after 45 years of service. He was a dockworker, and 62 years old at the time he was laid off. That should have made finding another job a piece of cake…Not.
And so, Mr. Smith sued his ex-employer alleging age discrimination. In his suit, Mr. Smith alleged that during his last months of employment he received a disproportionate number of disciplinary write-ups and that the company changed its layoff guidelines. Ummm.
And he claimed that new guidelines were introduced that exempted part-time and supervisory employees, to ensure he was laid off while younger workers with worse work records remained employed.
But wait—Central Freight was just cutting costs—it was a legitimate business decision they argued. Wouldn’t it cost the company less in the long run to keep their experienced employees on who don’t make mistakes—or likely make fewer mistakes?
Well, anyway, unlike Up in the Air, this story has a happy ending. Mr. Smith won his suit and was awarded $257,500.
That’s it for this week—see you at the Bar!
Week Adjourned: 3.5.10
March 5th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
New Wash Setting: Extra Sure Beyond Any Doubt Clean. What would you do if your washing machine took eight hours to do one load? Just to put that in perspective, you could to fly to Europe in the same time it would take to wash your sheets—depending on where you live. Ummm…doing the laundry or flying to Paris—that’s a tough one.
But you could only fly to Paris if you could trust that your washer would do the job properly in your absence, and Ms. Riva, who filed a class action against Sears recently, was not feeling the love.
No doubt.
Among the litany of problems both she and her machine were experiencing on washday—or would that be wash week—were a high-pitched squeaking noise, the machine stopping mid-cycle for no apparent reason, and then displaying the rather cryptic message, in washing machine secret code, “F1 or F51″—your guess is as good as anybody’s as to what that means.
Ms. Riva paid $1000 roughly for her new washer in 2006, and Sears issued a recall of the instrument panel in that particular model some time after that. But she didn’t find out about the recall until after she’d paid to have the panel replaced, by Sears, who didn’t mention the recall, but charged her for the replacement because the washer was no longer under warranty.
You know, I’d be suing too. If she wins, maybe she can take a trip to Paris and do her laundry.
Top Settlements
Medical Malpractice in the News… This is a rather tragic cautionary tale about a 47-year old woman who
Week Adjourned: 2.12.10
February 12th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions 
Community Fights Cancer Cluster. What would you do if your neighborhood got the tag line ‘cancer cluster’? Well, several families living in West Palm Beach have filed a potential class action lawsuit against Pratt & Whitney over that very issue. Unfortunately, as the term denotes, the ramifications are serious and affect more than just property values—which is what the class action is about. As many as 10,000 homeowners who live near the Pratt & Whitney plant in The Acreage, Florida could be affected.
According to the complaint, on February 1, 2010 the Palm Beach County Health department confirmed that The Acreage has a cancer cluster—a higher than normal rate of brain tumors among children in The Acreage area, which is located very near the Pratt & Whitney plant.
The source of the illness and the resulting reduction in property values is—you guessed it—toxic chemicals—no surprise there. And it’s quite a list of poisons including oil, sodium cyanide, thorium dispersed nickel, construction debris, unknown solid waste (keyword: unknown), solvents, solvent sludges, asbestos, fuel, paints, pesticide and herbicide residue, benzontrite, mercury, and commercial laboratory chemicals.
Oh—let’s not forget the 1,4-dioxane, also among the contaminants on site, which the US Department of Health
Week Adjourned: 2.5.10
February 5th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Toyota: “Moving Forward” Alright. This week is really the week of the Toyota class action. I have to be honest—I’ve lost count as to the number of lawsuits that have been filed, but I did see a report today that put the number at 29, and counting. That may just be some kind of world record.
At the heart of the issue is the now infamous sticking gas pedals. (It puts a whole new spin on the expression ‘give it some gas’—and certainly creates a little irony for Toyota’s tagline: moving forward.)
Of course, it’s not really funny, given that hundreds if not thousands or possibly millions of people will be at the very least inconvenienced by the recalls, now totalling some eight million cars—but it will also affect people’s livelihoods, and at worst there are reports of injuries.
In the highly unlikely event you’ve not heard about this issue, you can find more out all the recalls here.
Overdoing the Overdraft thing. Again. Yet another overdraft fees lawsuit was filed this week, this time the accused party is Fifth Third Bank. The lead plaintiffs in this lawsuit allege that they were illegally charged overdraft fees for purchases made on the ATM and debit cards, even when they had enough funds in their accounts to pay
Week Adjourned: 1.29.10
January 29th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Citizen of your Wallet? It seems that no amount of bad PR or more importantly, federal regulations, are effective deterrents against bad business practices by banks. This week, a potential class action lawsuit was filed against Citizens Bank alleging that customers have been unfairly charged overdraft fees. Sound familiar? It should. This is just one in a spate of similar lawsuits involving overdraft fees—including a class action against Bank Atlantic, in November 2009.
In this particular lawsuit, Citizens Bank could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars it allegedly unlawfully charged its customers by manipulating debit transaction postings to generate overdraft fees. In other words, CB seemingly put its customers into debt deliberately so it could charge overdraft fees. You do that to enough customers and presto—you’re rich—possibly even rich enough to afford those six figure senior management bonuses.
And the kicker? The fees were imposed under the guise of an ‘overdraft protection plan’ that the lawsuit alleges customers were not allowed to opt out of. I guess the epitaph to this could be—they don’t have your back—they have your wallet.
Top Settlements
If you Leave me Now, You’ll Pay an Early Termination Fee… (ok, so I’m not a lyricist) Keeping on the theme of
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