Posts Tagged ‘ chinese drywall ’
Week Adjourned: 6.17.11
June 17th, 2011. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Logistical Error? Nothing like a lawsuit to improve your company’s standing—or attract quality employees—as FTDI West is about to find out. The company, located in California and Florida, got hit with an unpaid overtime class action lawsuit this week.
The gist of the lawsuit is labor code violations, well, that’s a no-brainer. Specifically, the lawsuit states that FTDI West Inc, violated: Sections 226.7 and 512 of the California Labor Code by failing to provide adequate meal breaks to employees involved, section 226.7 of the California Labor Code by failing to provide adequate rest breaks to employees involved, Section 510 of the California Labor Code by failing to pay proper overtime wages, Sections 203 and 226 (a) of the California Labor code by providing involved employees paystubs not in compliance with California law and not paying “waiting time” penalties, as well as two other causes of action as related to Business and Professions Code Section 17200 and the common law tort of unjust enrichment.
The overtime claims asserted deal with non-payment of “double time” wages. Double time wages are due for any work over 12 hours in a workday or any work beyond eight hours on any seventh consecutive day of a workweek.
The lawsuit defines its class members as “All current and former employees of Defendants who were employed as non-exempt employees at any of Defendants’ locations anywhere in California, at any time from four years prior to the initiation of this action until the present.”
Top Settlements
Drywall Might Settle but the Dust Surely Hasn’t… Remember all the defective Chinese drywall lawsuits of not so very long ago? Well, they are slowly making their way through the courts to settlement land. Case in point—Banner Supply has agreed a $54.4 million settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by homeowners in the Orlando, FL area. In fact, the agreement covers 2,000 to 3,000 homes south of Orlando.
According to Builderonline something like 95 companies have been implicated as distributors of the sulfur-tainted drywall and named in subsequent lawsuits filed against the Chinese manufacturers. The defendants are accused of being the source of tainted drywall. While Banner Supply tops the list, others suppliers reportedly include ProSales L&W Supply, ProBuild, Stock Building Supply, and 84 Lumber.
While $54.5 million might seem a large settlement, it may only work out to between $18,000 and $24,000 per home, and estimates suggest the cost of repairing the affected properties could reach $100,000.
Defective Boat Injury leads to $31M Award. Ok. There’s bad design, and BAD DESIGN. In this case, I’m not talking about an infraction of the Home & Garden variety, but rather something that warranted a $31 million award. Two women brought a defective product and personal liability lawsuit against MasterCraft, after suffering some pretty horrendous injuries that good design likely would have prevented.
Short version, in 2006 Nichollette Bell and Bethany Wallenburg were among 12 passengers riding in a MasterCraft X-45 wakeboarding craft. They were sitting on the bow of the boat when it was suddenly submerged as the driver of the boat went to retrieve a fallen wakeboarder. As a result the women were swept off the boat by the force of water and into the lake. The boat’s propeller struck Bell on the head, ripping out an eye and leaving her with brain damage. The propeller also slashed Wallenburg’s left elbow and lower back, resulting in muscle and nerve damage. In their lawsuit, the women alleged the boat was defectively designed. They also alleged the driver handled the boat negligently. Not surprisingly, the jury found MasterCraft 80 percent at fault and the driver 20 percent at fault.
OK. That’s it for this week. See you at the Bar.
Week Adjourned: 5.13.11
May 13th, 2011. By AbiK
Top Class Actions
Put your paycheck on a diet? These women don’t think it’s a such a good idea. Two Long Island women who worked for Jenny Craig filed a unpaid wages class action lawsuit, alleging that the well-known weight-loss chain put their paychecks on a diet.
The women, in a suit filed May 10 In New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, claim that Jenny Craig Operations Inc., the Carlsbad, Calif.-based chain owned by multi-national food giant Nestlé’s, improperly shortchanged them by a 1/2 hour a day for every shift they worked, even though they worked during their 30-minute break times. The alleged underpayments violate New York’s labor laws, according to court papers.
The suit, which seeks class action status, was filed by Tammy Weinstein, of Bellmore, who has been a program director and weight loss consultant since November 2002 at Jenny Craig locations in Valley Stream and Massapequa, and by Melissa Pallini, of Holbrook, who was a weight loss consultant, program director, part time receptionist, and stocker from June 2008 until June 2010 at the chain’s East Patchogue location.
The suit seeks to represent all New York employees of Jenny Craig who worked as weight loss consultants, receptionists, stock persons, program directors and any other employee at Jenny Craig weight-loss centers. According to court papers, the class included more than 500 people who’ve worked at Jenny Craig since May 2005. The chain has 30 locations statewide, 10 of them on Long Island, in Centereach, E. Patchogue, Great Neck, Farmingdale, Freeport, Hicksville, Huntington Station, Massapequa and Valley Stream.
The employees worked about 15 to 35 hours a week on shifts of five to eight hours one day to five days per week, according to court papers.
Jenny Craig, a commercial program that features portion-controlled, prepackaged meals supplemented by store-bought vegetables and fruit, received top marks this week from Consumer Reports for diet success. The chain offers support through weekly counseling sessions.
The diet chain’s celebrity spokespersons have included actress Kirstie Alley, Valerie Bertinelli, Queen Latifah, actresses Sara Rue and Nicole Sullivan, actor Jason Alexander and, since January, actress Carrie Fisher.
Top Settlements
Where there’s smoke, there’s gas… This is certainly an interesting twist on an old theme. A Flordia judge recently ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in litagation over defective Chinese drywall. The Hillsborough County judge, Robert Foster, ruled that homeowners’ insurance should Read the rest of this entry »
Defective Products—Will the World be held Accountable?
January 13th, 2011. By janem
Wikileaks just got wind of a secret document from Chinese officials regarding the pending Foreign Manufacturers Legal Accountability Act of 2010, or FMLAA. If the bill is passed, China plans to buy “Made in America” products, from toys to drywall, splatter them with lead paint and sell these defective products to countries that trade with the US. Why, you may ask? Because China wants to level the playing field: If the US can sue China under the FMLAA for contaminated drywall and defective toys, “foreign countries” (including Canada and the EU) can sue the US because their “Made in America” products are contaminated with lead paint.
KIDDING! But it may have crossed the minds of unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers…
Last February, Representative Betty Sutton introduced the FMLAA following the Chinese drywall debacle, which came on the heels of other problems with imported products—from baby cribs and toys to auto brakes. This bill will take the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2009 one step further, to product litigation. It means that foreign manufacturers who ship to the US will have to hire a resident US agent, who will then have to “accept service of process on behalf of such manufacturer or producer for the purpose of all civil and regulatory actions in State and Federal Courts.” No registered agent, no importation.
On Tuesday, January 11th, the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear two cases about the right to sue a foreign manufacturer in the U.S. court system.
In the first case, Robert Nicastro lost his four right fingers in 2001 while operating a machine used to cut metal made by McIntyre Machinery, based in the UK. The machine Nicastro was operating did not meet U.S. safety standards, but was marketed at trade shows across the US for 15 years. Nicastro brought a product liability case against the company in 2003, and McIntyre is arguing that because they are a UK company, they did not have sufficient “contacts” in New Jersey for the state’s legal system to have jurisdiction over them.
In the second case, two young boys, Matt Helms and Julian Brown were killed in a bus accident while traveling to Paris, France for a soccer tournament. The driver of the bus lost control when the Goodyear tire from the bus had its plies separate, causing the bus to rollover. The families of the boys are seeking to hold Goodyear Luxembourg, the manufacturer of the tire, accountable in the North Carolina court system.
Meanwhile, the head of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission seems to be up against a brick wall (pardon the pun) after meeting with her counterparts there about defective Chinese drywall, among other issues. Chinese drywall manufacturers have yet to come to the table for discussions. (According to the CPSC, as of Jan. 7, there were 3,770 incidents reported of defective drywall.)
Perhaps the threat of litigation under the FMLAA will get them talking.
Week Adjourned: 11.26.10
November 26th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
More Buzz on Google…only this time it’s not about Buzz. A potential class action lawsuit was filed this week against the company that claims the mantra ‘do no evil’. The lawsuit alleges that Google violated privacy laws by scanning Gmail accounts in order to sell and place advertisements on account holder’s user screens. Ummm. That doesn’t sound like something a good corporate citizen would do, at least to me.
Specifically, the lawsuit claims that Google violates The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 by scanning the content of all Gmail from any sender and uses the information to sell and place advertisements. (Kind of makes me think back to that old Rockwell song (above)—only Google wasn’t even around back then…) ”As result of Google’s actions in intercepting non-Gmail account holders’ emails, Google obtains a monetary benefit without consent of the Class members and without compensation to them,” the lawsuit states.
I have to admit, I have often wondered how all those topic specific ads crop up on the side of my Gmail screen…
Top Settlements
Isn’t ‘Wholesale’ Supposed to Mean ‘Discount’? ‘AstraZeneca hit the news rather quietly this week, with the announcement that they have reached two settlements—one nationwide, one in Massachusetts—related to two different classes of purchases of the drug Zoladex.
FYI—Zoladex is used to treat prostate cancer, advanced breast cancer, endometriosis, and Read the rest of this entry »
Chinese Drywall: Now Finger’s Pointing at Banks
November 10th, 2010. By LucyC
Well, it seems like the perfect storm has arrived on the doorsteps of American banks. For quite some time the pressure has been building around banking practices, specifically due diligence on foreclosures, which has recently resulted in a rash of class action lawsuits in various states across the country (see above chart for the breakdown of Chinese drywall reported incidents by state), as well as investigations by Attorneys General in several states. And there will likely be more to come. Now, in a bizarre twist of fate, it seems the Chinese drywall debacle has been added to the foreclosure mess. And what a witches brew it is.
This week, the Chinese Drywall Complaint Center (CDCC)—a national watchdog group—has issued a press release stating that “we are now targeting greedy US banks, for reselling toxic Chinese drywall foreclosures in Florida, and other US States, without an oh by the way—anytime after February of 2009.” They go on to state that “by March of 2009 we do not think there was a single US bank, or loan servicer that was unaware of the toxic Chinese drywall disaster—yet they continued to sell their poisonous foreclosures AS IS—no disclosure of this toxic Chinese drywall product to unsuspecting US consumers?” And, “For clarification purposes the Chinese Drywall Complaint Center is saying, “contrary to homebuilder claims about only using toxic Chinese drywall after Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005—toxic Chinese drywall has been used in Florida since as early as 2001.”
According to the CDCC website, the organization has “now determined with 100% certainty, that imported toxic Chinese drywall has been installed all over the US Southeast including the states of Florida, Louisiana, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Southeast Texas, Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina. Tragically, we believe toxic Chinese drywall has also been installed in all other regions of the United States. However, without high thresholds of heat & humidity, it becomes much more difficult to see the worst effects of toxic Chinese drywall.”
And, they also state that “many homes in the US Southeast have toxic Chinese drywall intermixed with US made drywall. If these homes were built or remodeled after 2001, we believe a small amount of imported Chinese drywall is enough to make an entire house toxic. The net result is [that] instead of ending up with tens of thousands of now toxic US Southeast homes, we are convinced we have 100,000′s of toxic US Southeast homes.”
It’s highly likely that people have purchased foreclosures that contain Chinese drywall. Thinking about who might be liable, though, actually makes my head spin: purchasers need due diligence such as home inspections; and lenders like to make sure the property is in good nick before they finance the mortgage; but then if it’s a foreclosure, wouldn’t the bank selling the house have to disclose that it was contaminated with Chinese drywall—provided they knew? And for that matter, does anyone have to disclose that a house is contaminated with Chinese drywall? These and many more questions come to mind. For my money, finding the answers would definitely be best left to lawyers.
But—deep in the midst of the Chinese Drywall hurricane there is some good news. Recently, Chinese drywall manufacturer Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Company agreed to pay to repair 300 homes in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi in a pilot remediation program. Reportedly, a Louisiana-based supplier and several home builders and insurers are contributing to the cost of the repairs. More than 3,000 claims are supposedly pending against Knauf. Let’s hope it goes well, because if it does the program might provide a framework for a larger settlement, which no doubt would be welcome.
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