Posts Tagged ‘ Florida ’
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: 11.12.10
November 12th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
More Foreclosure Fraud. It seems that between Chinese drywall and questionable foreclosures, Florida homeowners just can’t catch a break. A class action lawsuit was filed this week on behalf of tens of thousands of homeowners in the Sunshine State, who have allegedly been suffered as a result of GMAC’s use of fraudulent affidavits and other documents in foreclosure proceedings.
It seems that GMAC employees admitted in sworn testimony to signing whatever was put in front of them in foreclosure cases, regardless of the accuracy of those documents, without personal knowledge of the truth of what they are signing, without reviewing the underlying documents to determine whether the documents are accurate, and often not even in the presence of a notary.
Geoffrey Huber, one of the plaintiffs, said he discovered a “robo-signed” affidavit had been filed in foreclosure proceedings on the house he owns in Florida. “I don’t know how they thought they legally could get away with this.” Maybe because very few people ever check the fine print? Seems like a good time to start.
The Complaint alleges that the defects in virtually every foreclosure case filed in the last several years are not mere “technicalities,” nor just “sloppy paperwork.” Indeed, one of the lead plaintiffs in this case alleges that he was not actually in default at the time GMAC initiated foreclosure proceedings.
The lawsuit is seeking damages based on claims GMAC’s actions violated the homeowners’ Read the rest of this entry »
Take the Wheel, I have to Shave! and other Tortelicious gems…
March 9th, 2010. By LucyC
Welcome to Totally Tortelicious—a review of some of the more bizarre legal items making news. Goodness knows there’s no shortage of them. 
This one was a real close shave (and a very bad pun). A young woman in Florida, who was driving through the Keys to meet her boyfriend, decided she need to shave her bikini line en-route. I mean who has time to pull over these days? Seriously. 
Not surprisingly, she caused a car crash.
Wait—it get’s weirder. (What is it about Florida?)
The 37-year old handed the wheel of the car to her ex husband—who was not in the driver’s seat—both figuratively and literally. After piling into some poor guy who had slowed down to make a turn, she keeps her foot on the gas—clearly focused on her destination—and drove another half mile down the road where she stopped and swapped seats with her ex-husband so it looked like he was the one who had been driving.
My question is why didn’t she just get her ex-husband to drive her all the way there? As it turns out, she should not have been driving in the first place. The day before the accident, she had been convicted and sentenced to nine months of probation for DUI and driving with a suspended license. Her license was revoked for five years and she was ordered to get her car impounded.
You know, you couldn’t make this stuff up, even if you wanted to.
Talk about getting off to a roaring start. According to New England police, newlywed 22-year-old Marissa Read the rest of this entry »
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 Read the rest of this entry »
You can sue Tobacco, but it may cost you
January 13th, 2010. By AbiK
If you’ve been keeping up with the news on smoking lawsuits, you’ll know that Florida is the hotbed for action right now. Ever since the Florida Supreme Court threw out a $145 billion judgement against Philip Morris et al in 2006, the road has been opened up for smokers to file individual lawsuits against the tobacco company.
And so they have. But there’s a twist here.
Just yesterday, we learned that ex-smoker Jerome Cohen dropped his lawsuit against Philip Morris. Any time someone—a former smoker—drops their lawsuit against a tobacco company you begin to wonder why. Well, in this instance, Cohen’s lawyer, Philip Gerson, was quoted in the Associated Press as saying that Cohen’s health was the issue—he has lung cancer.
But other reports bring up another little-known—or little publicized—issue: in Florida, if a plaintiff refuses a settlement offer, continues on with their case and loses—or, according to smokersinfo.net, wins a judgement of at least 25 percent less than the defendant’s original offer, the defendant may seek attorney fees and costs from the plaintiff.
And that can be mucho dinero. Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, said in a statement earlier in the week that two other Florida smokers recently had to cough up $100,000 and $30,000 respectively—to Philip Morris—upon losing their cases.
Hard to imagine, but true. And that may well give pause to some indivduals who might otherwise file a lawsuit against Philip Morris.
I tend to look at the consequences of smoking as a mixed responsibility thing—that is, if you started smoking prior to Read the rest of this entry »
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