Articles Posted in Class-Action

The Fair Credit Reporting Act was enacted in 1970 to protect consumers from being unfairly denied a mortgage, rental apartment, or job based on incorrect credit histories. With the advent and growth of the Internet and social media, the Act has all sorts of applications that its creators could never have dreamed of.

Although, like most social media, LinkedIn provides many of its services for free, it also offers a service call “Reference Search” to its premium account holders who pay a monthly fee. This service allows an employer or recruiter to generate a list of people in its own network who worked at the same company at the same time as a job candidate. It also allows premium members to contact the people who appear on those lists using the site’s messaging system. All this can be done without the job candidate ever knowing.

Tracee Sweet, the lead plaintiff in the class action lawsuit against LinkedIn, applied for a job at a hotel chain via the social media site. She claims she was denied the job because the hotel company, without telling her in advance, used the site’s reference search to locate references on her.

Joseph Roualdes, a spokesman for LinkedIn, said the company takes its member privacy very seriously and that it intends to fight the lawsuit, which it insists has no merit. He said that, “A reference search, which is only available to premium account holders, simply lets a searcher locate people in their network who have worked at the same company during the same time period as a member they would like to learn more about. … A reference search does not reveal that member’s nonpublic information.” Continue reading ›

Many people believe that decisions made in courtrooms have little to do with anyone other than the people directly involved in the lawsuits, but that is not the case. When courts make a ruling, they have to consider not only the circumstances of the case before them, but how their ruling will affect other people in similar situations across the country.

One example of people misunderstanding the far-reaching implications of court decisions is right-wingers claiming that class action lawsuits are “frivolous” because they only benefit the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. People might assume this because the plaintiffs’ attorneys often take large cuts settlements and awards from class action lawsuits, while each individual plaintiff’s award is relatively small, but that doesn’t mean the rulings don’t benefit the plaintiffs or others. Just because a plaintiff suffers damage less than the cost of bringing a lawsuit, does not mean that their loss is insubstantial. For many people, a few hundred dollars could mean months of savings. Not to mention the numerous injunctions that come out of class actions, preventing future harm coming to any workers or consumers. Continue reading ›

Does Red Bull really give you wings? According to two recent consumer class action lawsuits against the maker of the energy drink, it does not. Although most of us don’t consider it a basis for a lawsuit when we fail to grow wings after drinking Red Bull, the lawsuits do allege that Red Bull’s advertisements violate a number of New York state laws.

The energy company creates advertisements claiming that the drink improves “performance, concentration and reaction speed”. However, according to the class action lawsuits, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that the ingredients in a can of Red Bull provide “any more benefit to consumers than a caffeine tablet or cup of coffee.” The lawsuits, which were filed in New York City, are seeking compensation for damages lost for consumers who paid a higher price for Red Bull’s products than they would have paid for “simpler and less expensive caffeine-only products”. Continue reading ›

Under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), defendants in a class action lawsuit are able to have the case moved to federal court. This law was enacted to prevent plaintiffs from “forum shopping”, or filing their lawsuit in the court that they knew would be most favorable to their side. There are limits to the law though. If the claims of a class action lawsuit amount to less than $5 million, or if at least two thirds of the class members are residents of one state, then the lawsuit can proceed in a district court of that state.

According to a recent ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the plaintiff bears the burden of providing evidence that allows the court to determine the citizenship of the putative class members as of the date that the case was removed to federal court. The ruling came out of a class action lawsuit that was filed against an Illinois insurance company for allegedly violating relevant state laws when it pulled out of the market in 2002 and cancelled all of its policies. The defendants had the case removed to federal court, but the plaintiffs argued that it belonged in Illinois state courts under the home-state exemption.

The plaintiffs argue that the lawsuit belongs in Illinois state court based on the fact that the defendants’ policy was offered only to people who represented that they lived in Illinois or, for group policies, to employers who represented that most of their beneficiaries lived in Illinois. The plaintiffs assert that, assuming that former policyholders left Illinois at the normal rate of 2% per year since 2002, about 87% of the putative class members were Illinois residents when the case was removed to federal court. Continue reading ›

The courts of the United States have seen an exponential rise in the number of wage and hour lawsuits that get filed every year, but the cause of this rise is unclear. Worker advocates allege that “wage theft” has become far too prevalent in our nation’s current economy. Many blame the recent recession, which pressured employers to cut corners in order to save costs. At the same time, employees were afraid of losing their jobs and being unable to find new employment. The result was that employers took advantage of the situation to get more work out of their employees while paying them less. It is only since the job market started to stabilize that employees have felt confident enough to file lawsuits against their employers.

Business advocates tell a different story. They assert that government officials are creating large numbers of wage and hour lawsuits, mostly so they can score points with the unions. They point to the fact that the recent wage and hour lawsuit against Schneider Logistics coincided with unions pressuring Walmart to raise wages. Although Schneider does store merchandise for Walmart, it is not owned by Walmart, and Walmart is not responsible for Schneider’s employment practices. Despite this fact, the lawyers and labor groups involved in the lawsuit against Schneider have sought to make Walmart jointly liable in the labor violations.

Business groups also claim that the onslaught of wage and hour lawsuits against McDonald’s has been coordinated with the recent movement by fast-food workers demanding a $15 minimum wage. Continue reading ›

The landmark decision not to certify a class of plaintiffs in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes has made it increasingly difficult for classes of plaintiffs to achieve certification. This is largely a result of the fact that the court in Wal-Mart determined that the class failed to meet the commonality requirement necessary for class certification. Courts all across the nation have been refusing certification to classes of plaintiffs that don’t have identical claims. According to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, though, the reasoning behind refusal of class certification in Wal-Mart was much narrower than courts have been interpreting it.

IKO Roofing Shingle Products is currently facing a class action lawsuit from Debra Zanetti, which alleges that IKO’s organic asphalt roofing shingles were defective. According to the lawsuit, which Zanetti filed on behalf of all proposed class members, IKO’s shingles allegedly do not meet an industry standard known as ASTM D225. Compliance with this standard is commonly determined using a testing protocol known as ASTM D228. The lawsuit, which was initially filed in district court in Illinois, is seeking certification of a class of plaintiffs consisting of all consumers who purchased organic asphalt roofing tiles from IKO since 1979. The district court denied the class certification and the plaintiffs appealed the decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The district court refused to certify the class on the basis of commonality. The district court determined that, per the prior decision made in Wal-Mart, it could not certify a class of plaintiffs without identical claims. The appellate court disagreed, though, pointing out that Wal-Mart failed to meet the commonality requirement for class certification based on the fact that the treatment of employees under different managers was too dissimilar. Since that is not the case here, the court concluded that the district court had erred in refusing class certification on the basis of commonality. Continue reading ›