Class-Action

Wave of Business Owners Sue Insurance Companies for Denying COVID-19-Related Business Interruption Claims

April 29, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

ATTENTION BUSINESS OWNERS: we are investigating possible wrongful denials of business interruption insurance claims due to COVID-19. If you would like us to review your policy, feel free to send it along.

With stories of COVID-19, the strain on global healthcare, and social distancing dominating headlines, the pandemic’s impact on the owners of small and medium sized businesses is sometimes lost in the shuffle. At the end of the day, business owners are people too. They deal with the same fears and concerns about Coronavirus as everyone else, plus the added anxiety that comes with being responsible for the livelihoods of employees and their families. In a time when many businesses are facing forced closures, a growing number of business owners have filed claims for business interruption coverage under their commercial insurance policies only to have those claims denied.

Business owners who have had their claims for business interruption coverage denied are not without options though. It is important in such instances to seek the assistance of an experienced insurance coverage and bad faith denial attorney who will help you review your policy, consider your options, and, importantly, determine if the insurance company wrongfully denied coverage. An attorney can negotiate on your behalf with the insurance company, and if necessary, file a lawsuit seeking a declaration of coverage and a judgment requiring payment under the policy. Continue reading ›

Class-Action Lawsuit Filed against CBD Product Producer over Allegedly False and Misleading Claims on Packaging and Website

April 10, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

CDB is everywhere these days. Products containing CBD can be purchased online, at health-food stores, and even at gas stations. The market for CBD containing or infused products is burgeoning and represents a lucrative opportunity for entrepreneurs as the market is expected to expand to a more than $16 billion industry by 2025. Despite its popularity, there is little in the way of regulation or guidance regarding the advertising and selling of CBD products.

In recent months, there have been a series of class-action lawsuits filed against the manufacturers and sellers of CBD products alleging false and misleading advertising and labeling of these products in violation of consumer protection statutes. In one of these newly filed class-action lawsuits, a putative class of consumers from Massachusetts filed a class-action lawsuit against Global Widget LLC, d/b/a Hemp Bombs (“Hemp Bombs”). The complaint alleges misleading labeling and statements concerning numerous Hemp Bombs products, including gummies, lollipops, capsules, syrup, vape and pet products.

According to the complaint, Cannabidiol (CBD) is a naturally occurring chemical compound known as a phytocannabinoid. CBD is typically derived from hemp plants for its purported medicinal qualities. CBD is used to treat anxiety, insomnia, depression, diabetes, PTSD, and chronic pain. CBD can be taken into the body in multiple ways, including by inhalation of smoke or vapor, as an aerosol spray into the cheek, and by mouth. Food and beverage items can be infused with CBD as an alternative means of ingesting the substance. Continue reading ›

Illinois Supreme Court Revisits Previous Decisions Concerning Pick Offs in Class-Action Lawsuits

April 5, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

The difference between an individual and class-action lawsuit can be significant for a business. What few business owners realize, however, is that every case begins as an individual case and only later does a court decide whether or not to certify the case as a class action. The question that class action defense attorneys have long considered is whether it possible to pay the named plaintiff’s individual claim and resolve the entire case before the issue of class certification is even considered. This tactic, known as a “pick off,” has been attempted for decades. Although a number of states have rejected the effectiveness of this tactic, Illinois has long been an outlier. Recently, the Illinois Supreme Court revisited its previous pick-off jurisprudence to clarify that a defendant can successfully pick off a named plaintiff in Illinois by “tendering” full relief before a motion for class certification has been filed.

According to the Illinois Supreme Court, tendering full relief entails paying the full amount demanded into the court’s registry, agreeing to pay the plaintiff’s reasonable attorney’s fees and costs, and effectively admitting liability. If there is injunctive or other non-monetary relief sought, the defendant may have to agree to that relief unconditionally as well. Continue reading ›

Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Sued for Defamation by His Fiancé’s Brother

March 28, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and currently the world’s richest man, has been sued for defamation by Michael Sanchez, the brother of Bezos’s girlfriend/fiancé. In his complaint, filed in a California state court, Sanchez alleges that Bezos has falsely spread rumors that Sanchez obtained and provided explicit text messages from and nude photos of Bezos to The National Enquirer. Sanchez claims that the allegedly defamatory comments have caused him to lose clients and be shunned by family and friends. In addition to Bezos, the suit also names Gavin de Becker, a security consultant hired by Bezos, and ten other “john does” as defendants.

The complaint, which reads like a lurid tell-all, is replete with salacious details concerning the Amazon founder. The complaint alleges numerous previously unknown details including when Bezos’s affair with Sanchez’s sister Lauren began, that Bezos and Lauren allegedly consulted a psychic concerning the affair and that Bezos and Lauren are currently engaged. And although the lawsuit requests actual and punitive damages, it does not specify how much money is being sought.

The lawsuit alleges that Bezos began his extramarital affair with Lauren in 2017 when her production company was hired to do work for Bezos’s space exploration company. Bezos and Lauren decided to keep the relationship secret based on advice from a psychic in New Mexico, according to the complaint. At the time, Bezos was still married to his now ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos. Sanchez, who claims that he has acted as Lauren’s agent since at least 2010, claims that he agreed to keep the affair secret to protect his sister’s personal and professional reputation. Instead, the complaint alleges that Sanchez “was instrumental in covering up first, the existence, and second, the timing of the affair.” Continue reading ›

Facebook Agrees to Settle Facial Recognition Class Action Lawsuit for $550 Million

March 21, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Facebook has agreed to pay $550 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its use of facial recognition technology in Illinois. According to the complaint, Facebook’s photo-labeling service called Tag Suggestions, violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by harvesting biometric from the photos of millions of Illinois users without their permission and without telling them how long Facebook would store the data. The case proceeded to settlement after a federal appellate court rejected Facebook’s attempt to have the case dismissed and ruled that the case could go to trial. We previously wrote about that decision here.

Under the terms of the settlement, Facebook will pay $550 million to eligible Illinois users and cover the plaintiffs’ legal fees. The firms representing the plaintiffs called it the largest cash settlement ever to resolve a privacy related lawsuit. The settlement dwarfs the $380.5 million that Equifax recently agreed to pay to settle a class-action suit over its 2017 data breach.

Facebook disclosed the settlement as part of its quarterly financial results, in which it took a charge on the case. The sum, while appearing large at first blush, barely amounts to more than a rounding error for Facebook, which reported $21 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2019 alone. This represents a 25% increase in revenue over the same quarter in 2018. Continue reading ›

Federal Appellate Court Rules that Employee not Bound by Arbitration Provision in Employee Handbook

February 9, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Arbitration and the enforceability of arbitration provisions have been hot topics in employment and consumer litigation for a number of years. Over the last decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued numerous opinions on the subject as well have a number of state supreme courts. In Shockley v. PrimeLending, 929 F.3d 1012 (8th Cir. 2019), the federal appellate court of the Eighth Circuit recently held that an arbitration provision in an employee handbook was not binding on the employee.

The plaintiff, Jennifer Shockley, was employed by PrimeLending from June 2016 through July 2017. After leaving the company, Shockley filed a collective action lawsuit against PrimeLending in federal court for allegedly violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). PrimeLending moved to compel arbitration on the basis that a provision in its employee handbook required all disputes to be decided by binding arbitration. The District Court denied PrimeLending’s motion. On appeal, the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

PrimeLending maintained an intranet accessible by its employees, which contained employment-related information, such as its new hire policies and its employee handbook. The employee handbook contained an arbitration provision which provided:

If the dispute cannot be settled through negotiation, you and the Company agree to attempt in good faith to resolve the covered dispute exclusively through final and binding arbitration in accordance with the terms, conditions, and procedures of this Arbitration Clause. Continue reading ›

Second Circuit Finds That Rule 68 Can Be Used To Settle FLSA Claims

January 15, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

Settling most cases is a difficult process, particularly when the parties dispute what exactly happened or when the underlying claim turns out to be smaller than anticipated. In Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) cases, the process can be even more difficult depending on the court’s interpretation of the FLSA’s enforcement provision, section 16, which permits the Department of Labor to supervise settlements.

Courts have reached differing interpretations regarding this statutory language and whether it requires DOL or judicial approval of all FLSA settlements. The parties to an FLSA case may wish to avoid having to submit a settlement agreement to the court to obtain approval before a case can be settled. Such reasons include a desire to keep the settlement terms confidential, the cost of obtaining judicial approval, and the time delay inherent in having to obtain judicial or DOL approval. The question that has long plagued litigants and attorneys alike is whether the parties can find a means of settling their matters without having to seek review, as they do with virtually every other kind of employment case. Continue reading ›

ComEd Prevails in Class-Action Lawsuit Alleging Breach of Illinois Employee Credit Privacy Act

January 10, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

An Illinois appellate court recently affirmed grant of summary judgment in favor of Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) in a class-action lawsuit alleging that ComEd violated the Illinois Employee Credit Privacy Act (“Act”), 820 ILCS 70/1 et seq., by investigating the plaintiff’s credit history in connection with a conditional offer of employment and ultimately refusing to hire her as a result of that investigation.

Many Illinois residents are familiar with ComEd, the public utility company that provides electrical services to nearly four million customers in Illinois. In 2017, ComEd offered the plaintiff a conditional offer for a part-time position. The offer was contingent upon the plaintiff’s successfully passing a background check, credit check, and drug test. ComEd subsequently withdrew its offer and notified the plaintiff by email that “due, in part, to information received from the consumer report previously provided to you, we are not able to offer you employment at this time.”

The plaintiff responded to the news by filing a class-action lawsuit alleging that, by inquiring into her credit history and obtaining her credit report in connection with her application for a position and by ultimately refusing to hire her because of information contained in the report, ComEd violated her rights under the Act. Continue reading ›

TCPA Class Action Defense: Appellate Court Rules Single Text Message Insufficient to Create Standing

January 1, 2020 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

A recent decision by the Eleventh Circuit federal court of appeals adds another arrow to class action defendants’ quiver by making it more difficult for plaintiffs to establish standing to sue under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). The appellate court ruled that a single text message did not cause sufficient harm to sue in federal court.

In Salcedo v. Hanna, 936 F.3d 1162 (11th Cir. 2019), the plaintiff, John Salcedo, received a single form text message from his former attorney offering a discount on the attorney’s services. After receiving the message, Salcedo filed suit in the district court alleging that the text message violated the TCPA, 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii). Salcedo sought to prosecute the suit on behalf of a putative class of the attorney’s former clients who also received unsolicited text messages from the attorney in the past four years. He alleged that the text message caused him to “waste his time answering or otherwise addressing the message” and infringed upon his “right to enjoy the full utility of his cellular device” and sought statutory penalties of $500 to $1,500 for each text message as damages.

After the defendant unsuccessfully moved to have the case dismissed for lack of standing and failure to state a claim, the district court permitted the defendant to file an interlocutory appeal recognizing that the question of standing “involves a controlling question of law as to which there is a substantial ground for difference of opinion.” The three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit did not buy the plaintiff’s standing arguments.

In a detailed opinion, the panel examined its own precedent, the legislative history of the TCPA, and the history of Article III’s standing requirement. Any discussion of standing would not be complete without an examination of the Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Spokeo v. Robins. At the conclusion of this examination, the appellate court concluded that the plaintiff’s allegations about a single text message failed to state a “concrete injury-in-fact” necessary for federal jurisdiction.

Vegan Customer Files Class Action Lawsuit against Burger King over Impossible Whopper

December 31, 2019 | Peter S. Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle

In a putative class action recently filed in a Florida federal district court against fast-food chain Burger King, the tagline for the Impossible Whopper of “100% Whopper, 0% Beef” is misleading. According to the plaintiff, Philip Williams, although Burger King advertises the Impossible Whopper as being a meat-free option, it is contaminated by meat by-product because it gets cooked on the same grill as other meat products.

The lawsuit accuses Burger King of “false and misleading business practices” and benefiting monetarily from claiming to offer customers a vegan option that in reality is not actually vegan. The plaintiff seeks to represent himself and a class of other vegans who ordered the Impossible Whopper from Burger King. The lawsuit seeks to recover damages for all class members who bought the Impossible Whopper, as well as the imposition of an injunction requiring Burger King to “plainly disclose” that it uses the same grill to cook both the Impossible Whopper and meat burgers.

According to the complaint, the Burger King that the plaintiff visited did not have signage at the drive-thru indicating that the plant-based burger would be cooked on the same grill as meat. The Burger King website notes that “a non-broiler method of preparation is available upon request,” for customers ordering the Impossible Whopper. Despite noting this on its website, the plaintiff alleges that no one told him that the Impossible Whopper was cooked on the same grill as the meat burgers and that if he had known this fact, he would not have ordered it. The suit further claims that other vegans would not have purchased the Impossible Whopper either if they had known. The lawsuit cites similar complaints made by several other consumers online about the burger chain’s preparation of the Impossible Whopper. The complaint requests an order requiring Burger King to return all the profits it made from selling the meat-free alternative, including the money that Mr. Williams paid. Continue reading ›