Resources

On Friday, January 15, 2016, two class action lawsuits were filed by residents of Flint, Michigan against Michigan Governor Rick Snyder; former Flint emergency managers, Darnell Earley and Jerry Ambrose; the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality; the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services; and Genesee County, alleging that the defendants knowingly concealed the severity of the water contamination problem in Flint from residents. The contamination crisis began in the spring of

The Bair Hugger operates like a forced-air heater by carrying warmed air through a hose to a disposable blanket that is placed over the patient. The Bair Hugger helps to maintain the patient’s body temperature during surgery; due to several factors including anesthesia, IV fluids or a cold operating room, a patient’s body temperature can drop by up to 35 degrees in the first 35 minutes of surgery. Plaintiffs alleged that when the product circulated unsterile air from the surgery room floor to t

On January 6, 2016, Florida resident, Christopher Romano, filed suit against Starbucks Coffee Co. in Broward Circuit Court. Romano claims that he suffered second-degree burns to his groin when the barista working the drive-thru window at the Pompano Beach Starbucks failed to make sure he had a proper hold on his cup. Romano is seeking damages in excess of $15,000, alleging that the coffee he was served was excessively hot and, therefore, dangerous for human consumption. Romano’s case is bringin

A study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health revealed serious health risks associated with the use of e-cigarettes, including an enhanced risk of developing a serious respiratory disease. While e-cigarettes have often been promoted as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes, this research, published on December 8, 2015 in Environmental Health Perspectives, proves otherwise. Accordingly, researchers found that the chemical diacetyl, which is contained in 75% of e-cigarette fla

On December 22, 2015, Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway announced that the ongoing consumer protection suit against pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”), over its anti-psychotic drug Risperdal, settled for $15.5 million. Risperdal is a second-generation antipsychotic prescription drug that was initially approved by the FDA in 1993 to treat symptoms of psychotic disorders. In the early 2000s, the drug’s approval was more specifically designated to the treatment of schizophr

Pharmaceutical manufacturer, Merck & Co., has agreed to pay $830 million to settle a federal class action lawsuit brought by investors who claimed that the company misled them in regards to the safety of the painkiller, Vioxx. The company said the settlement will be paid out to investors who bought Merck stock between May 21, 1999 and October 29, 2004. Merck has also agreed to pay attorneys fees, but has not admitted to any liability or wrongdoing. Vioxx, which debuted on U.S. markets in 19

On November 20, 2015, after 45 days of negotiations, Uber Technologies Inc. reached a $1,785,913 settlement over claims that the popular ride-sharing company misrepresented airport fees it charged to consumers in California. It is estimated that in 2013 and 2014 more than 350,000 Uber riders paid the company between $1.25 and $4.50 per trip to and from various California airports for “airport fee tolls.” Uber claimed that the airports charged the tolls it collected, however, the lawyers in the

newscientist.com On January 4, 2016, a new development in the Volkswagen emission scandal emerged when the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a civil complaint against the German company on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleges that the company violated the Clear Air Act by installing emissions defeat devices in up to 11 million diesel engine vehicles worldwide, nearly 600,000 of whi

cbc.caOn December 8, 2015, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation designated the Northern District of California as the venue for the Volkswagen A.G. emissions litigation. Judge Charles Breyer will preside. The litigation is made up of more than 500 class actions originally filed in 60 different federal courts. The plaintiffs in the actions allege that Volkswagen intentionally deceived consumers by advertising its vehicles as clean diesel cars, while in reality the vehicles emitted

On December 2, 2015, Philadelphia Judge Arnold New ordered the case Mothena v. Janssen Research & Development to be transferred to the Xarelto multidistrict litigation pending in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Mothena is different from the majority of plaintiff claims in the Xarelto MDL, which allege that the drug causes excessive bleeding, because David Mothena is claiming that the drug does not protect against blood clots for the advertised 24-hour period. Xarelto is the second-most

After a three week trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, a jury found that ESAB Group was 100% liable for a factory worker’s death from mesothelioma, a deadly cancerous condition typically caused by exposure to asbestos. The verdict is the first asbestos case to be tried to verdict against an employer in the state of Pennsylvania. The jury awarded $1.7 million in damages, with $1 million going to the deceased plaintiff John Busbey’s widow and $700,000 to his estate. In July 2012, 72

thelegalintelligencer.com On November 13, 2015, U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied Defendant McNeil Consumer Healthcare’s motion for summary judgment in the Tylenol MDL’s first bellwether case. Defense counsel argued that summary judgment should be granted because the suit was time-barred by Alabama’s wrongful death statute, which demands that such actions must be brought by a personal representative of the deceased within two years of the date

On January 8, 2016, the City of Los Angeles executed a proposed class action settlement agreement that will require the City to pay approximately $1.4 billion over a 30-year period to make its public sidewalk and crosswalk system accessible to persons with mobility disabilities. The agreement, which provides relief to an estimated class of 280,000 people, requires the City to “install, repair and upgrade curb ramps; repair sidewalks and walkways damaged by tree roots; repair broken or uneven pa

ncbusinesslitigationreport.com On October 14, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez on the central issue of whether a class action suit becomes moot when the named class representative receives an offer of complete relief on his claim before the class has been certified. On May 11, 2006, Defendant Campbell-Ewald sent Gomez an unsolicited text message as a part of a recruitment campaign for the U.S. Navy. Gomez filed a class action lawsu

On Monday, January 5, 2016, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah granted class-action status to a lawsuit alleging that the Internet giant, Yahoo Inc., sent unsolicited text messages to Sprint customers. The class could potentially include more than 500,000 members. Named plaintiff, Rachel Johnson, claims that she was sent an unsolicited text in March 2013 via Yahoo Messenger from a fellow Yahoo user who was advertising debt reduction services. After she received the spam message, Johnson claims Yah

Popular online fantasy sports sites FanDuel Inc. and DraftKings Inc. are facing around 40 class action lawsuits in 13 different states. Plaintiffs are accusing the sites of false advertising and consumer fraud, and in some cases, consumers are seeking to be reimbursed for losses incurred on the site. Participants on the sites create fantasy sports teams, mainly football, and hope to win enough points to be awarded prize money based on the real-life performances of the athletes on their fantasy

technewstoday.com Fitness tracker competitors Jawbone and Fitbit, Inc. have been engaged in a series of escalating legal battles since May 2015. In its latest legal salvo filed on October 30, 2015, Jawbone alleges that Fitbit has filed a series of meritless legal actions, has stolen Jawbone’s trade secrets and has poached its employees. Jawbone insists that Fitbit’s actions are all in an effort to maintain an illegal monopoly over the fitness tracker industry. Fitbit, the clear leader in the ind

On November 9, 2015, a Philadelphia jury ordered drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson to pay 21-year-old Nicholas Murray $1.75 million after finding that the company’s antipsychotic drug Risperdal caused Murray to develop male breasts. In the case, Murray alleged that J&J’s subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, the company that manufactured the drug, failed to adequately warn patients and doctors of the risks of taking Risperdal, which included developing gynecomastia—a condition in whic

On January 21, 2016, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer announced his appointments for the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee in the Volkswagen multidistrict litigation (“MDL”). Breyer named San Francisco plaintiff’s attorney, Elizabeth Cabraser, as the head of the committee of 22 attorneys. Cabraser is a co-founder of the firm, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, and has been a leader in 17 other MDLs. In his order, Judge Breyer said, “Ms. Cabraser will effectively represent and guide the plai

On November 2, 2015, the U.S. EPA announced new findings expanding the Volkswagen emissions scandal to include not only additional Volkswagen models, but also models of Porsche and Audi. The EPA now maintains that emissions defeat devices were used in VW’s 2.0-liter diesel models, the 2014 VW Touareg, the 2016 Audi A6 Quattro, A7 Quattro, A8, A8L, Q5 and the 2015 Porsche Cayenne. According to the EPA, the emissions defeat devices could detect when the vehicle was undergoing an emissi

On October 22, 2015, U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, of the Eastern District of Louisiana, announced the dates for four bellwether trials in the Xarelto multidistrict litigation, the first of which will take place on February 6, 2017. Xarelto is the second-most popular blood thinning medication in the United States–generating billions of dollars in revenue each year. Plaintiffs in the consolidate litigation allege that defendants, Janssen Research & Development, Johnson & Johnson and

On October 21, 2015, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman of the Eastern District of Wisconsin preliminary approved a settlement in the lawsuit against Subway involving allegations that the fast food giant’s six-inch and footlong sandwiches did not measure as advertised. The class action suit originated in 2012 after Subway customers voiced complaints on social media about the unsatisfactory length of their sandwiches. The plaintiffs asserted the company’s business practices violated state consumer

On Monday, November 3, 2014, Stryker Corporation announced it would pay at least $1 billion to settle cases brought by thousands of patients over injuries sustained by faulty hip implants manufactured by its subsidiary, Howmedica Osteonics Corp. In June 2012, Stryker voluntarily recalled its subsidiary’s Rejuvenate and ABG II devices and terminated global distribution “due to the potential for fretting and/or corrosion at or about the modular-neck junction, which may result in adverse local tis

On October 16, 2015, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded $8 million to Marion Liu in her action against Janssen Research & Development LLC, arising from the 2009 death of her son Augustine. At the time of his death, Augustine, a 25 year-old diagnosed Schizophrenic, had been participating in a company-sponsored clinical study of the antipsychotic medication Risperdal. Augustine Liu died of cardiac arrest less than one week after his first injection of the drug.  Liu argued that Jansse

LinkedIn, the blockbuster professional networking site, has agreed to pay $13 million to certain of its current and former members who used the company’s ‘Add Connections’ feature—a process that imports a member’s contact information from external email accounts and then invites the imported contacts to connect on LinkedIn via an initial email and up to two reminder emails. The settlement, which was preliminarily approved by U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh on September 15, 2015, provides awa

On October 23, 2015, a class action lawsuit, Phillips v. Apple Inc., was filed in California federal court against Apple over the company’s new mobile operating system, iOS9. The plaintiffs in the action allege that the company did not adequately warn users that its i0S9 default feature, called “Wi-Fi Assist,” caused devices to switch automatically between using wi-fi and mobile data. Consequently, the plaintiffs in the litigation contend that the default setting, which leads to more cellular d

forbes.com At least four people apparently believe it does. Within the past week, LinkedIn made headlines over a class action suit filed in the Northern District of California concerning a product offered to the social networking site’s premium account holders, which purportedly has cost the four named plaintiffs job opportunities. The product, called “Reference Search,” provides those members who purchase a subscription the ability to search for and, through internal messaging, contact individu

marketbeat.com On October 27, 2015, four former drivers for Amazon.com filed a proposed class action lawsuit in the Superior Court, Los Angeles. Plaintiffs allege that the company misclassified them as independent contractors rather than full time employees. By classifying drivers as independent contractors, Amazon.com was able to deny them the benefits of California employment laws such as minimum wage, overtime pay, meal breaks and reimbursement for work expenses. Plaintiffs allege that altho

In the wake of Volkswagen’s admission on Tuesday, September 22, 2015, that 11 million of its vehicles worldwide were equipped with software that could be used to dupe emissions control tests, the German auto manufacturer is facing a barrage of class actions, as well as investigations by U.S. authorities that could lead to as much as $18 billion in civil penalties. The Volkswagen emissions scandal initially gained widespread media coverage after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a

On August 28, 2014, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Doherty declined to overturn a Louisiana jury’s award of over $9 billion to plaintiffs Terrence and Susan Allen in the first federal bellwether trial over claims that the diabetes drug Actos increases the risk of getting bladder cancer. The verdict, which according to data compiled by Bloomberg was the nation’s second largest in 2014, and sixth largest in U.S. history, slapped Actos manufacturer Takeda Pharmaceuticals with $6 billion in puni