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California
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May 13, 2013
Starbucks Reaches $3M Settlement In Wage Class Action
Starbucks Corp. agreed to pay $3 million to resolve a class action filed by workers in California alleging the company denied them required meal breaks and issued inaccurate wage statements, according to documents filed in California federal court Friday.
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May 13, 2013
Thermo Fisher Hid Mexico Plant's Cartel Woes, OpenGate Says
OpenGate Capital LLC sued lab equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. in California federal court Friday, claiming Thermo Fisher sold a lab workstations unit to the private equity firm last year without disclosing that its Mexico plant was under near-constant siege from drug cartels.
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May 13, 2013
Nobel Biocare $1.3M Dental Impact Settlement Stalls
A proposed settlement to resolve a $450 million federal lawsuit accusing Nobel Biocare Holding AG of misrepresenting a dental implant dentists said caused bone and gum problems stalled at a hearing in California Monday when a dispute arose over whether the settlement forms break the law.
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May 13, 2013
PNC Can't Dodge Suit Over 'Banker's Interest' Calculation
A California magistrate judge on Friday kept alive a putative class action brought by an apartment building owner alleging PNC Bank NA used an unfair calculation of the so-called banker's interest rate it charged borrowers that wrongfully hiked rates on commercial loans.
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May 13, 2013
BMW Roadster’s Alloy Wheels Crack Early, Suit Says
BMW of North America LLC was targeted in a putative class action in California federal court Friday alleging that the alloy wheels it used in in its BMW Z4 sports cars from model years 2007 to 2012 are prone to cracking and create a safety hazard.
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May 13, 2013
Howrey Fires Off 4 More Suits Over Unfinished Business
Defunct law firm Howrey LLP launched a series of suits in California bankruptcy court Friday against four law firms, including Jones Day and Hogan Lovells, claiming that the firms owed it profits from completing client matters that originated at Howrey.
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May 13, 2013
General Mills Can't Shake 'Natural' Snack Labeling Suit
A California federal judge on Friday refused to let General Mills Inc. escape a putative class action accusing the company of falsely labeling their snack products as "natural," ruling that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not have primary jurisdiction to address the allegations.
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May 13, 2013
Citing Brinker, Calif. Appeals Court Backs Guards' Class Bid
A California appeals court on Friday said security guards accusing Boyd & Associates Inc. of wage-and-hour violations are entitled to class certification, reversing its previous ruling in the wake of the state Supreme Court’s landmark Brinker decision.
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May 13, 2013
Deals Rumor Mill: Partnership Assurance, UBS, Euronext
A private equity-backed British life insurance group is plotting out an initial public offering that would value it around $1.5 billion, while higher-ups at UBS have agreed to meet with representatives from an activist investment firm urging the bank to split itself up and consider an alternative ownership structure.
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May 13, 2013
OfficeMax Settles ZIP Code Collection Suit
OfficeMax North America Inc. on Friday agreed to hand out $600,000 in merchandise vouchers to settle a proposed class action accusing the company of illegally asking to record customers’ ZIP codes during credit card transactions.
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May 10, 2013
Wal-Mart Accuses Labor Unions Of 'Disorderly' Trespassing
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Friday accused members of two unions of trespassing inside its California stores and of "disorderly conduct" including harassing its customers and damaging property as part of their labor activities.
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May 10, 2013
Ex-DOE Lab Workers Win $3M In Wrongful Firing Case
Five former longtime employees of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scored a $2.7 million victory Friday when a California jury found that the lab had breached its employment contracts by laying them off in 2008 rather than eliminating temporary employees first.
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May 10, 2013
Facebook GC Ted Ullyot Leaves Company
Social media giant Facebook Inc. is losing its top lawyer, Ted Ullyot, the company announced Friday.
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May 10, 2013
Apple Accused Of Rigging IPhone Power Button To Fail
Apple Inc. was hit with a putative class action Friday in California federal court alleging the iPhone 4’s power button is rigged to fail just after the one-year warranty covering the device has expired, rendering the phone unusable.
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May 10, 2013
HP Can’t Quite Beat Investor Claims Over Nixing WebOS
A California federal judge left intact several claims that Hewlett-Packard Co. executives misrepresented the company’s plans for the WebOS operating system after it bought Palm Inc., but did trim the bulk of the allegations from the putative shareholder class action.
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May 10, 2013
Legendary Denied Arbitration In 'Godzilla' Producers' Suit
A California judge on Friday denied a bid by Legendary Pictures Productions LLC to arbitrate claims alleging it breached a producer loan agreement for its planned reboot of “Godzilla,” finding “substantial evidence” that a trio of producers never agreed to arbitration.
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May 10, 2013
Calif. AG's Credit Card Suit May Herald New Regulatory Push
California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ Thursday suit accusing JPMorgan Chase & Co. of flooding the state’s court system with shoddy credit card debt-collection suits shows that state and federal regulators across the country are eager to apply the lessons learned in recent mortgage servicing crackdowns to the consumer debt arena, experts say.
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May 10, 2013
Pandora Customers Bring New Suit Over Personal Data Use
A putative class of users of Pandora Media Inc.'s Internet radio took a second whack at the company Thursday, amending a previously tossed complaint with more information about how the users are damaged by Pandora's allegedly improper use of their personal information.
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May 10, 2013
Edison Unit Gets FERC's Tariff Ruling Nixed In DC Circ.
The D.C. Circuit on Friday backed Southern California Edison Co.’s challenge to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s decision to nix its proposed transmission tariffs, affirming the agency’s methodology but saying it illegally updated the return on equity without properly considering evidence provided.
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May 10, 2013
Ex-UCLA Prof Cops To DARPA Nanotech Fraud
A former University of California, Los Angeles, physics professor agreed Thursday to plead guilty to charges that he defrauded the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency by faking bills for nanotechnology research, a crime that will cost him nearly $1.7 million in penalties.
Expert Analysis
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A Setback For Apple In Privacy MDL
As a result of Apple Inc.'s failure to comply with discovery obligations, a judge in the Northern District of California recently denied Apple's motion for summary judgment in a privacy class action by iPhone and iPad owners and ordered the plaintiffs to withdraw their class certification motion and refile later. Having now shown its cards on grounds for its dispositive motion and for opposing class certification, Apple could be in a quandary, says Evan Nadel of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC.
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Credit Card Privacy Case Is Bad News For Mass. Retailers
In Tyler v. Michaels Stores Inc., the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recently ruled that asking for customers' ZIP codes during a credit card transaction violates a state consumer protection law. Without a doubt, this is a bad decision for Massachusetts retailers. The active Song-Beverly plaintiff’s bar in California may now set its sights on the Bay State, say attorneys with Sedgwick LLP.
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Finally, 8 Factors Governing FIRREA Civil Penalty Awards
The recent decision by the Central District of California in United States v. Menendez may finally give the government and FIRREA defendants a framework for their discussions. The ruling, in a small civil bank fraud case brought against an individual, appears to be the first judicial decision setting forth the factors that a court should consider when imposing civil penalties under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, say attorneys with BuckleySandler LLP.
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A New Duty Of Care Owed To Calif. Borrowers
In light of the California Court of Appeal opinion in Jolley v. Chase Home Finance LLC, borrowers embroiled in disputes with their lenders with respect to the lenders’ performance under a construction loan agreement — especially where the bank representatives indicated the likelihood of a loan modification — may be able to state a cause of action for negligence, misrepresentation and/or promissory estoppel, says Andrew Howard of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP.
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New CEQA Bill — Cure Or Band-Aid?
In response to a business community campaign calling for broad California Environmental Quality Act reform, Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Calif., released his highly anticipated CEQA "modernization" bill. So far, the bill is more remarkable for what it lacks than for what it contains, but it still could reduce CEQA delay and uncertainty, says Barbara Schussman of Perkins Coie LLP.
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5th Circ. Stirs The Artificial Impairment Pot
The Fifth Circuit decision in Western Real Estate Equities LLC v. Village at Camp Bowie I LP may renew debate among the circuit courts and bankruptcy courts regarding how far a plan proponent may go in engineering an impaired class of creditors to cram down a plan, say Luc Despins and Robert Winter of Paul Hastings LLP.
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9th Circ. Clears The Air For Mine Owners
In the recent case, Center for Biological Diversity v. Salazar, the Ninth Circuit ruled that mining plans of operations do not expire after temporary closures. This decision marks notable, favorable precedent for the mining industry and project proponents and helps settle expectations for mining plans of operations, says Tyler Welti of Perkins Coie LLP.
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Novel Approach To Opposing Class Certification Rejected
Current and former student-athletes are one step closer to forcing the National Collegiate Athletic Association and its member institutions to share their profits with them now that the Northern District of California ruled they can proceed to class certification. Lawyers should take note that the judge made it clear that the defendants' motion to strike the certification motion was not the correct avenue to take, say attorneys with Zelle Hofmann Voelbel & Mason LLP.
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Calif.'s Road To Fracking Regulation Will Be Bumpy
For the foreseeable future in California, fracking regulation will continue to move forward on three parallel paths: through the courts, legislature and agencies. Unfortunately, however, none of these paths are likely to provide the industry with clear rules regarding fracking activities in the next year, say attorneys with Bingham McCutchen LLP.
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Riverisland Erodes Calif. 'Parol Evidence Rule'
Lenders and counsel will likely devise a number of provisions making it difficult for borrowers to be believed in court if they come up with claims of fraud contrary to the terms of written contracts they have signed. The lesson from the California Supreme Court decision in Riverisland Cold Storage Inc. v. Fresno-Madera Production Credit Association, however, is that doing so at the contract drafting and execution stage is more important than ever, says Perry Mocciaro of Cox Castle & Nicholson LLP.