Class Action Finder

Listeria poisoning scare prompts class action against Maple Leaf

yuming — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:25:16 +0000

In Toronto, a class action lawsuit has been filed against Maple Leaf Goods after a listeriosis outbreak caused by its tainted meat products. So far, 20 people have died because of this harmful bacterium.

Listeriosis is a food borne illness whose symptoms include high fever, severe headaches, neck stiffness, and nausea.

In Aug 2008, the poisonous bacteria was linked to a food plant in Toronto which was temporarily shut down in the wake of the outbreak. Massive recalls of Maple Leaf products were activated.

Cheese producers in Quebec have also been affected and have been given a multi-million dollar aid package to help cope with the recent listeria crisis, which resulted in many cheese products to be seized and destroyed.

The court documents have also recounted the horrifying effects it had on victims, such as Elizabeth Schroh in Unity, Sask., whose body convulsed and struggled to breathe before she passed away.

Overseeing this lawsuit is Regina lawyer Tony Merchant who said more than 4,500 people across Canada have registered to be in the class action.

The complaint accuses Maple Leaf of negligence and the class action filed in the state of Ontario seeks CAD350 million (USD287 million) in damages.

Maple Leaf CEO Michael McCain has already apologized for the outbreak and has said his company would take full responsibility.

Wal-Mart class action given the green light

yuming — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:40:57 +0000

Massachusetts Wal-Mart employees and former staff sued the retail giant in a class action law suit in 2001 for allegedly withholding their wages and cutting their breaks short.

The case was delayed in 2006 after a Middlesex Superior Court judge refused to certify the class action suit and tossed out some evidence. But in Sept 2008, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court overturned that ruling, and the case is now moving forward again.

Attorney Robert Bonsignore of law firm Bonsignore & Brewer is representing the Massachusetts workers, and some of their colleagues who filed similar complaints in other states.

He said the class action includes anyone who worked at Wal-Mart for an hourly wage and the case could go to trial within nine months. Furthermore, the ruling shows that the courts are willing to take the types of allegations made against Wal-Mart seriously.

The Supreme Judicial Court, in its ruling, recognized that Wal-Mart store managers are under a lot of pressure to increase profits by minimizing labor costs.

According to the ruling, store managers are rewarded for keeping salary costs low, and are penalized bonuses or even their jobs if their stores spend beyond Wal-Mart payroll guidelines.

“It makes it clear that at least in Massachusetts the unfair competitive advantage that Wal-Mart has had over other business is not going to be tolerated,” Bonsignore said. “This is not only a victory for the employees, it’s a victory for small and large competitors.”

Wal-Mart, meanwhile, says its policy is to pay workers for all their hours and notes that the verdict was not a decision on the merits of the case.

Bonsignore countered that it is logical to treat the case as a class action. He said if the case succeeds most plaintiffs will probably get awards of just $500 to $1,500, hardly enough to warrant filing individual lawsuits.

Pet food class action deadline is nearing

yuming — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:08:01 +0000

Remember the furor over melamine-tainted pet food? It seems the issue is at rest and the news is abuzz with the China milk scandal.

For those who have not heard but were affected, you’ll want to know that the deadline this class-action settlement is coming up real soon.

The deadline for filing a claim is Nov 24, 2008. The settlement is for those who purchased or whose pets consumed pet food and/or treat products recalled after March 16, 2007.

Pet food producers have a $24-million pool to divide among pet-owners who fall into this class. Thousands of pets died because of food containing wheat gluten grown in China, and countless cats and dogs fell ill.

Although there has been a resolution to this debacle, pet-owners are still unhappy, simply because, you can’t replace a pet who was part of the family with a wad of cash.

Here are the contact details for those who want to make their claim:

Visit www.petfoodsettlement.com or call toll-free 1-800-392-7785 to inquire about the settlement.

American egg producers sued

yuming — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:07:39 +0000

New York state restaurant, T.K. Ribbing’s Family Restaurant of Falcone, has launched a lawsuit against 13 major U.S. egg producers and three egg trade groups, with the accusation that they deliberately fixed prices by reducing the supply of eggs in the last eight years.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The complaint also seeks class action status that was filed just days after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was investigating possible antitrust violations in the egg products industry.

The restaurant believes that the defendants took part in a conspiracy that caused egg supplies to drop which led to a jump in prices. According to federal antitrust laws, competitors are not allowed to conspire for the purpose of altering prices.

The lawsuit says that the egg companies were able to dramatically increase the price of eggs from 2000 to record highs by 2007 and into 2008 through these measures.

The ways in which the egg producers conspired included delaying or reducing chick hatching, manipulate the molting of hens to keep egg production low, and restricting output in the United States and overseas exports.

The plaintiff is seeking a jury trial, and wants the case certified as a class action on behalf of other egg buyers who purchased directly from the producers. The lawsuit seeks triple damages as well as other relief under federal antitrust laws, plus attorneys’ fees and costs.

The defendants include Pilgrim’s Pride Corp, Cal-Maine Foods Inc and the trade group United Egg Producers Inc.

Bayer not sued in a class action for bio-tech rice

yuming — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:24:00 +0000

The good news for Bayer is that they don’t have to deal with a class action from disgruntled farmers, but that doesn’t mean it is the end of litigation.

A federal judge denied a class action lawsuit to be filed against Bayer CropScience AG over the accidental release of experimental genetically engineered rice into the food supply.

The rice farmers want to sue Bayer CropScience because they suffered great losses due to the contamination. The accidental release of the experimental rice supplies, called Liberty Link, into the public food supply in 2006 caused several foreign countries to ban imports. This led to a disastrous lowering of US rice prices.

However, the Liberty Link strain of rice was not deemed harmful to humans, but it was not approved for human consumption by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department found that the rice was sneaked in from a corporate-funded test plot at Louisiana State University, where it was grown alongside commercial varieties.

The reason behind U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry’s ruling was that although Bayer was clearly at fault, the farmers’ claims were too different from one another to be put together into a single class action.

If the case had been certified, thousands of farmers in rice-farming states such as Missouri and Arkansas could have joined the class action.

Bayer CropScience said in a statement it “welcomed” the ruling, “We believe we have acted responsibly and have complied with all relevant regulations and guidelines in our biotech rice development activities.”

Don Downing, an attorney with Gray Ritter and Graham in St. Louis who represents farmers in the case, said the plaintiffs are considering an appeal on the ruling.

“I think a lot of farmers were waiting to see if a class was would be certified. I think now that judge Perry has declined to certify that case, then there may well be an influx of a lot more lawsuits,” said Downing.

Downing also reckoned that all the lawsuits would not have to be tried seaprately, even if they were not given class-action status.

For example, farmers might choose to litigate a handful of “test cases,” and then try to settle based on the verdicts in those cases.

Facebook faces class action over Beacon

yuming — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:15:54 +0000

Social network company Facebook has been slapped with a class action suit because of its controversial Beacon advertising system.

The suit claims that Facebook aggregated users’ online activity and then shared it with friends without requesting for permission first.

Facebook has dealt with previous privacy law disputes, prior to this lawsuit launched by its own users.

Blockbuster, who was also involved in the Beacon debacle, was similarly sued in a class action regarding user privacy issues earlier this year.

Beacon was designed to grab data on users from external affiliate websites, such as Blockbuster or Overstock, and then share that information with people’s social circle through their profile page.

When privacy advocates protested at this system, Facebook changed its policies to make Beacon opt-in and also the option to turn off the function completely.

Despite Facebook’s back-peddling, 32 plaintiffs who were affected before the changes were made are now looking to further restrictions on the Beacon system, deletion of data already collected and unspecified damages.

Dannon yogurt class action in California

yuming — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:43:19 +0000

Lead plaintiff Patricia Wiener filed a class action lawsuit against yogurt company Dannon for making false claims on its probiotic products. She is represented by attorney Tim Blood from Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins.

According to the complaint, Dannon knowingly misled consumers by promoting the clinical benefits of products that the company derived from its own testing. About $100 million was spent on advertising.

The claims were that eating Dannon’s DanActive and Activa Yogurts
were “scientifically” and “clinically” proven to “regulate your digestive system.”

In only two years, the company earned an estimated $428 million from sale of its DanActive and Activa yogurts in the US. It seemed the advertising slogan worked and was very successful.

Coined as a “discerning” consumer by her lawyer, 45-year-old health conscious Patricia Wiener wanted to try Dannon’s yogurt for its amazing digestive benefits, but found that this brand of probiotic yogurt was no different from other types. Dannon’s products are priced 30 per cent more than other brands.

Blood has a reputation for being an experienced consumer protection and litigation lawyer and found this case to be of interest.

He said, “One of the things that attracted me to case is that these are advertising claims, directed at people who are trying to do the right thing.”

He also described the Dannon suit as an uncomplicated deceptive advertising case where the facts veer to the plaintiffs’ favor.

“We have looked at all the scientific studies,” he asserted, “and retained experts and we just don’t see how Dannon can really claim that their advertising is accurate.”

If the class action litigation against Dannon were successful, the company would potentially have to compensate millions of dollars to its consumers. The lawsuit also requests that Dannon replace the misleading advertising with accurate information.

The class action certification hearing is scheduled for September 22, and Blood expects a decision will be made soon after that.

Wal-Mart staff win wage-and-hour class action suit

yuming — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:19:41 +0000

In July 2008, Wal-Mart lost a $6.5 million class action lawsuit in a Minnesota court after an arduous three-month trial. A state court judge ruled that Wal-Mart broke state labor laws more than two million times because the supermarket chain failed to provide its employees proper rest breaks. The damages were awarded to approximately 56,000 Wal-Mart employees in Minnesota.

This ruling takes place after a $172 million jury verdict against Wal-Mart in California in 2005 and a $78 million jury verdict in Pennsylvania in 2006. Both cases are being appealed.

A Wal-Mart spokesperson released a statement about the case, “We are pleased that the court in Minnesota ruled in Wal-Mart’s favor on many points before, during, and after trial. We respectfully disagree with portions of the decision. As part of the order, the court invited both parties to file an appeal, and we are considering that option.”

Houston legal eagle Susman Godfrey represented Wal-Mart in both trials and is leading the appeals as well.

There were some positive outcomes for Wal-Mart’s ruling, where the judge did not award the entire $25 million sought by plaintiffs, and found millions fewer violations than the class had alleged.

But the supermarket giant still has a second trial on breaking state labor laws. Minnesota’s statute provides for fines of up to $1,000 per violation of state labor law, so Wal-Mart may have to pay out more than $2 billion.

However, this amount of money will go to the state of Minnesota and not to class members. The jury at the second trial, scheduled to begin in October, will also consider punitive damages, which will go to the class.

Lawyers for the class view the judge’s ruling as a victory for the plaintiffs, even though the class did not get everything they sought after.

On top of the continuing Minnesota trial, Wal-Mart has to deal with at least five more wage-and-hour trials in the next year and a half.

Sprint loses class action suit

yuming — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:01:33 +0000

In their battle over termination fees, mobile phone carrier Sprint was ordered to fork out $18.3 million to customers who filed a class action suit over fees charged for ending their contracts early.

Sprint must also pay out another $54.5 million to customers who were charged the fees but haven’t paid them yet, under the court ruling. This is a bad financial hit on already struggling Sprint.

While this class action was launched in California, it will have no direct impact on wireless customers in other states.

However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is now considering a slew of federal proposals that will tackle early termination fees (ETFs).

Several telecommunications companies have lobbied the FCC to protect wireless carriers from class action suits filed in state court.

At an FCC hearing in July, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin raised the possibility of a plan calling for all carriers, including Sprint, to reduce ETFs over the life of the contract.

Some carriers, including industry leaders Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and T-Mobile, have this in place already.

Canadian class action against Vioxx

yuming — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 09:34:42 +0000

American drug company Merck is facing a class action certified by The Ontario Superior Court of Justice over its troubled painkiller Vioxx.

The pharmaceutical company is paying out billions of dollars to settle lawsuits in the US.

The Canadian case includes Vioxx users outside the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Saskatchewan, where judges have already certified class action personal injury cases. The drug was made at a Merck research institue in Quebec.

This involved several thousand patients, said plaintiffs attorney Bonnie Tough, and that the cases date back to 2004.

Merck said in a statement it wants to appeal the ruling. The New Jersey based company concedes that each plaintiff’s case should be tried separately.

“The company intends to defend these cases vigorously over the coming years, and we are confident that the courts will decide these cases based on sound science,” said Merck’s lawyer Mary M. Thomson in the statement.

Merck recalled Vioxx four years ago due to increased heart attack risks, after which it faced plenty of lawsuits. This case has set Merck back by at least $6.8 billion.