Legal News Articles & Interviews

New York, NY A whistleblower is getting a big payout after he filed a lawsuit under the New York False Claims Act, accusing H&M of keeping millions of dollars in unused funds from its gift cards. Rather than transferring unredeemed gift card balances to the Abandoned Property Fund as the law stipulates, H&M lied about an out-of-state company handling its gift cards business. But H&M didn’t count on the whistleblower: greed ultimately cost the fashion retailer $36 million—from keeping about $18.4 million in unused gift cards. Clearly, deception doesn’t pay when the whistle is blown.

Washington, DC On January 10, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Delta Airline’s petition for certiorari, in which it sought review of the question of whether the Constitution’s Article I Commerce Clause and the federal Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) exempted airlines from California labor law’s wage and hour regulations. This left intact the Ninth Circuit’s decision that the airline violated California minimum wage, overtime, meal and break, timekeeping, and wage statement rules.

Portland, ME Flowers Foods has been given the green light by a U.S. District judge to settle a unpaid wages class action lawsuit with its current and former distributors in Maine to the tune of $23 million. No wonder the cost of bread has risen. It can’t be blamed solely on supply shortages.

Oakland, CA Whether or not trucking companies with operations on port property – such as the Port of Oakland and the Port of San Francisco – are subject to Longshore Act coverage is yet to be determined. 

Pensacola, FL Lorna P., one of many hernia mesh victims, is hopeful that she will receive compensation after hearing that the jury in the second C.R. Bard bellwether trial awarded $255,000 to a man allegedly injured by C.R. Bard’s hernia mesh.

Atlanta, GA On April 15, plaintiffs in Pizarro v. The Home Depot asked U.S. District Judge Steven D. Grimberg to recuse himself because of his association with the Chamber of Commerce, which had filed an amicus curiae brief in support of The Home Depot in 2021. The $140 million class action ERISA lawsuit was assigned to Judge Grimberg on March 4 of this year only after Judge William M. Ray II, who had previously presided over the case, recused himself because he was about to inherit Home Depot stock. This is the fourth re-assignment sought by the plaintiffs.

Las Vegas, NV (April 26, 2022) A jury awarded $40 million in compensatory damages and $160 million in punitive damages to the family of a Las Vegas man who died after being wrongfully denied a specific type of cancer treatment. Sierra Health and Life, a UnitedHealthCare Company, denied Bill Eskew’s claim for proton beam therapy (PBT). Sandy Eskew, the widow and on behalf of Bill Eskew’ estate, brought a lawsuit against Sierra Health and Life. After a 13-day trial, the jury found Sierra Health and Life had breached its duty of good faith and fair dealing also known as “insurance bad faith.” 

Santa Clara, CA If Major League Baseball and its teams have their way, minor leaguers will be prohibited from mentioning their purported poor living conditions at a California wage trial, arguing that the evidence is irrelevant and could unfairly sway jurors.

Evansville, IN In December 2020, Alcoa USA Corp. retirees brought an ERISA lawsuit in the Southern District of Indiana to block Alcoa’s announced plan to change the way in which it provided collectively bargained retiree health benefits. The changes at issue in Kaiser v. Alcoa USA Corp. (originally captioned Simpkins v. Alcoa USA Corp.) became effective in 2021 and affect roughly 3,000 retirees and spouses. They were made unilaterally by Alcoa, apparently without negotiating with the workers’ collective bargaining representative.

Santa Clara, CA A state appeals court told Uber last month that it cannot force a former driver to arbitrate his misclassification lawsuit or even whether he is an employee and therefore entitled to bring a representative claim under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).