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On Thursday, June 2, 2016, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered the transfer of more than 50 class-action lawsuits—alleging that several brands of Parmesan cheese, which had been labeled as 100% grated Parmesan cheese, contained wood-pulp and cellulose as fillers—to U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman of the Northern District of Illinois. Defendants in the suit include Kraft Heinz Co., Target Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. private-label Parmesan cheese and Supervalu Inc. Plai

On May 26, 2016, Scott Magee from Metairie, Louisiana, filed a class-action complaint against McDonald’s Corporation for alleged systemic violations committed by the fast-food chain against blind persons. The lawsuit arose because Magee, who is blind, approached a local McDonald’s drive-thru window on foot after the restaurant’s lobby was closed last August. The restaurant refused service to Magee, laughed at him and told him to leave.McDonald’s Corporation late-night drive-thru policy provides

On May 24, 2016, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) requested Judge Ed Kinkeade of the Northern District of Texas to hold all future trials in the multidistrict litigation arising from its DePuy Pinnacle hip devices until certain post-trial motions were ruled upon in the “Aoki cases”—decided just one week prior. In the Aoki cases, which were designated as the second bellwether trial in the MDL, a jury awarded $498 million to five plaintiffs who suffered debilitating injuries as a result of receivi

Consumer finance companies have until August 22, 2016, to express their concerns regarding the latest rule proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), which bans class action arbitration waiver provisions in consumer financial products and services agreements. The proposed rule (81 FR 32830) was published in the May 24, 2016 issue of the Federal Register for public comment and, if made final, will be codified in 12 CFR part 1040. Pursuant to Section 1028(b) of the Dodd-Frank

On June 13, 2016, Judge Kevin McNulty granted Defendant General Mills’ request for a stay in proceedings In re General Mills, Inc. Kix Cereal Litigation. Plaintiffs in the suit allege that General Mills purposefully misled consumers by labeling boxes of its Kix cereal as “all natural” when in fact the cereal was made with bioengineered corn. Kix boxes were labeled “all natural” from 2009 to 2013. Defendants requested the stay so the FDA could sift through comments on whether the use of the word

On June 10, 2016, an Alabama-based car dealership, Turnbull Automotive, filed a lawsuit against the Centerville, Virginia-based company, Carfax, on behalf of itself and all other individuals and entities who have been subject to intermittent, arbitrary increases in subscription fees with the company over the past four years. Carfax subscribers are given access to information on the repair history of used cars. The plaintiff claims that the defendant, Carfax, has been significantly and arbitrari

A recent report released by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) highlighted the increasing global epidemic arising in advertising that could impact a plaintiff firm’s marketing strategy—due to ad fraud, a huge number of online ads never reach actual humans. The WFA estimates that by 2025, ad fraud will result in losses to companies aggregating over $50 billion annually, which could easily rise to $150 billion if nothing is done to protect consumers against the fraud. Further, the WFA pred

Plaintiffs in the Fitbit class action received encouraging news when the results of a recent study conducted by California State Polytechnic University, Ponoma concluded that Fitbit’s PurePulse pulse tracker does not accurately monitor a user’s heart rate during more intensive workouts. The study, which was commissioned by Plaintiffs’ attorney, Lieff Cabraser, tested the heart rates of 43 adults wearing the PurePulse heart rate monitors and then tested the same people using a BioHarness device

With technology advancing at an ever-increasing rate, the law must be continuously reexamined in order to keep pace with society’s needs. Products liability law is currently experiencing this phenomenon, as 3-D printing becomes a reality in many industries. 3-D printing poses a significant disruption to the usual flow of the supply chain on which traditional products liability law is based; now anyone can simply design and manufacture a product from the comfort of their own home. The black and

Under the agreement, announced at a court hearing on Thursday, Volkswagen is to provide “substantial compensation” to owners of over 500,000 2-liter vehicles that were fitted with high-tech software used to evade U.S. emission requirements. The specific financial details of the settlement, including how much each owner will receive, were not provided. Some news sources have reported that Volkswagen will spend just over $1 billion to compensate owners, but exact amounts were not disclosed as neg

U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has ordered that Terry v. McNeil-PPC, Inc., the first bellwether trial in the Tylenol MDL, be pushed back four months to allow for the resolution of similar Tylenol suits pending in New Jersey. Plaintiff, Rana Terry, filed suit on behalf of her deceased sister, Denice Hayes. In November 2015, Defendant McNeil Consumer Healthcare attempted to get Terry dismissed, arguing that the suit was time-barred by Alabama’s wro

Computer technology giant, Apple, recently agreed to a $24.9 million settlement with New York engineering school, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (“RPI”), who claimed that one of its professors developed the technology that Apple uses in its personal assistant application, Siri. Plaintiffs in the suit include RPI, which employed Professor Cheng Hsu and his doctoral student, Veera Boonjing, and Dynamic Advances, a Dallas, Texas based company that purchased the technology from RPI in 2011. Plai

On April 5, 2016, the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of Americans placed on the “No Fly List” created and maintained by the United States government. In the suit, which is pending in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, Plaintiffs allege that persons were placed on the list, including a seven-month-old baby, even though it was clear they were not terrorists. They claim that nominat

On April 5, 2016, Christopher DiStasio brought a class action suit against Edible Arrangements, LLC over the popular fruit franchise’s marketing via automated text messages. In the complaint, DiStasio, on behalf of himself and those similarly situated, alleges that the text messages sent by Edible Arrangements to his cellular device within the last four years were not authorized. Further, he argues that the messages he received from Edible Arrangements were fully automated, as the content was “

On March 29, 2016, a New Jersey state appeals court decided to uphold the $11.1 million verdict in the pelvic mesh suit, Gross v. Ethicon. The three-judge Appellate Division panel chose to uphold the 2014 Atlantic County Superior Court decision, which awarded $3.35 million in compensatory damages to Plaintiff, Linda Gross, and $7.76 million in punitive damages to Gross and her husband. The panel determined there was substantial evidence to show that the defendant knew of the potential dangers a

As a result of his serious medical condition, Braden had to undergo two open-heart surgeries since his birth in 2004. Rader alleged that officials at GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturers of the drug, were aware of the dangers the drug posed to unborn children, and yet did not inform the medical community of the risks.  In the post-trial motion, Plaintiff’s counsel argued that Judge Powell misinterpreted the 2010 case management order governing the Paxil mass tort cases when he granted GlaxoSmithK

 thinkglink.com The plaintiffs’ law firm financing company, California Attorney Lending, announced today that one of its clients, Gianni ♦ Petoyan, successfully resolved a birth injury case resulting from an obstetrical failure to diagnose intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR)—a common prenatal condition. As a result, the child suffered a hypoxic injury in utero resulting in periventricular leukomalacia and cerebral palsy. The profoundly disabled child will require lifetime care. The case resol

On April 25, 2016, named plaintiff Jan Burgess and 513 other current and former residents of Flint, Michigan filed a notice of class action against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the complaint—filed almost two years after city officials decided to save money by switching Flint’s water source from Detroit’s municipal system to the Flint River—the plaintiffs assert that the EPA was negligent, which contributed to the dangerous levels of lead in the city’s water supply. They seek $22

Philadelphia cosmetology school, The Jean Madeline Aveda Institute, has agreed to settle class claims alleging that the school overcharged customers for cosmetic services performed by students in violation of Pennsylvania state law. Lead plaintiff, Sophia Krivy, claimed that The Jean Madeline Aveda Institute charged her $12 for a haircut performed by an unlicensed student. Krivy argued that $12 was significantly higher than state law allows such a service to cost. According to Pennsylvania stat

On April 12, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a putative class action could proceed despite a defendant offering judgment on a named plaintiff’s individual claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68. In the case, Chen, et al. v. Allstate Ins. Co., named plaintiffs Richard Chen and Florencio Pacleb filed a class-action complaint against Allstate Insurance Company alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer protection Act (“TCPA”) after recei

On February 16, 2016, Sony became the first defendant to settle claims in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) alleging that lithium-ion battery makers including Sony, Toshiba Corp., NEC Corp and LG Chem America and others, violated antitrust laws by fixing the prices of lithium-ion batteries sold to both direct purchasers and consumers. The litigation was consolidated into an MDL in California federal court under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in 2014. In the settlement agreement, So

After six years of litigation, parties in the polyurethane foam multidistrict litigation have agreed on a $151 million settlement. Plaintiffs in the suit claimed that the defendant manufacturers, Carpenter Co., Leggett & Platt Inc., Mohawk Industries Inc., Woodbridge Foam Corp., Hickory Springs Manufacturing Co., Future Foam Inc., FFP Holdings LLC, FXI Holdings Inc., Vitafoam Inc. and Vitafoam Products Canada Ltd., conspired to illegally fix the price of polyurethane foam from 1999 to 2012.

mermanlawfirm.com On March 30, 2016, a jury in New York City found that the ignition switch in a General Motors’ vehicle was not proximate cause of injuries sustained by driver Dionne Spain and passenger Lawrence Barthelemy after an accident. The eight-person jury, however, did conclude that the car was unreasonably dangerous. On January 24, 2014, Spain and Barthelemy were driving a 2007 Saturn Sky on Crescent City Connection Bridge in New Orleans when it spun out of control and hit a jersey bar

A federal judge granted class certification on March 2, 2016 to insurance agents who claim that the company who hired them, American Family, mislabeled its sales force as “independent contractors” to avoid compliance with the requirements of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”). Walid Jammal and Dana LaRiche, on behalf of themselves and those similarly situated, filed the lawsuit in February 2013. In the class action, the plaintiffs assert that American Family hired insurance a

On February 4, 2016, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) announced they would consolidate around 80 actions in thirty districts against popular online fantasy sports sites, FanDuel Inc. and DraftKings Inc., into a multidistrict litigation in the District of Massachusetts. Plaintiffs’ allegations generally fall into one of three categories. First, Plaintiffs are accusing the companies of insider trading. Plaintiffs contend that had they known employees were participating on the

On February 12, 2016, Colin R. Brickman brought a class action lawsuit against Facebook, Inc. seeking to permanently halt the social media company’s practice of sending unsolicited birthday text messages. Brickman, on behalf of himself and each member of the potential class, is also pursuing an award of statutory damages of up to $1,500 against the company for every birthday text transmitted by Facebook without a recipient’s prior express consent. In the class action complaint filed in the Nort

wsj.com On February 10, 2016, U.S. District Judge Noel Hilman of the District of New Jersey gave final settlement approval in the Electrolux Home Products class action litigation. The settlement has the potential to be worth up to $20 million. The class is made up of around 100,000 members who claim that the Electrolux ice makers they purchased failed to provide “ice at your fingertips” as it had been marketed to do and instead began leaking just months after purchase, causing damage to the refr

On February 17, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a class action settlement of two antitrust lawsuits involving claims that Apple Inc. fixed the prices of electronic books. Specifically, in the lawsuits, the State Attorneys General in 33 jurisdictions and individual consumers in 23 other jurisdictions alleged, among other things, that Apple and five book publishing companies conspired to “raise, fix and stabilize the retail price for newly released and bestselling

money.cnn.com On February 4, 2016, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly appointed Washington, D.C. attorneys Steve Williams and Michael Hausfeld as co-lead counsel in the airline price fixing multidistrict litigation (MDL), In re: Domestic Airline Travel Antitrust Litigation. Judge Kollar-Kotelly also approved Williams and Hausfeld’s recommendations of Elizabeth Cabraser, Robert Kaplan and Warren Burns as executive committee members. According to lead counsel, the executive committee was p

On January 18, 2016, Defendant Bank of America (“BOA”) agreed to pay $27.5 million to settle class action claims that it violated consumer protection laws when it unjustly charged overdraft fees to BOA debit card users. Members of the class include BOA checking account holders within in the U.S. since May 25, 2011. With the help of both Magistrate Judge Wells and Judge Phillips, a settlement was reached after nearly two years. Per the settlement agreement, none of the $27.5 million settlement w