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Class Action
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May 17, 2013
Papa John's Will Deliver $16.5M To End TCPA Claims
Papa John's International Inc. has agreed to pay $16.5 million to resolve a nationwide class action alleging it advertised pizzas through unwanted text messages in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, according to a Friday filing in Seattle.
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May 17, 2013
Penn. Insurance Exchange Leaders Want $300M Action Nixed
Directors of a company that runs the Erie Insurance Exchange urged a Pennsylvania federal court to toss a $300 million putative class action claiming they violated fiduciary duties to millions of exchange members, arguing that the dispute belongs before the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.
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May 17, 2013
Kmart Rips Bid To Set Aside Judgment In Seating Trial
A former Kmart Corp. cashier's claim that the company misled the court and her lawyers — a bid to undo her loss at the first class action trial over California's suitable seating requirements — is meritless, Kmart told San Francisco federal judge on Thursday.
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May 17, 2013
ING Gave Morgan Stanley Kickbacks For 401(k) Biz, Suit Says
An Alabama medical laboratory filed a proposed class action in New York federal court on Friday alleging Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. encouraged the lab to use ING Life Insurance and Annuity Co. to administer its employees' 401(k) plan because ING paid the brokerage firm extra fees.
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May 17, 2013
Juniper Ducks Securities Suit Over Alleged Misstatements
A California federal judge on Friday threw out a putative class action brought against Juniper Networks Inc. for purportedly assuring investors that the company was doing well when it was actually facing several problems, saying the allegations didn’t give reasonable inference that Juniper’s projections were false and misleading.
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May 17, 2013
Schwab Fund's Changes Breached Contract, 9th Circ. Hears
Northstar Financial Advisors Inc. urged the Ninth Circuit on Friday to revive its shareholder suit against Schwab Investments, arguing that a lower court was wrong to find that a Schwab fund prospectus isn't a contract and that financial advisers do not have standing to sue on behalf of investors.
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May 17, 2013
Consultants Get Longer Notice Period In Wells Fargo OT MDL
A Texas federal court extended a time window Friday for mortgage consultants to join multidistrict overtime litigation against Wells Fargo & Co. following the Fifth Circuit's ruling on an allegedly wasteful challenge to conditional certification, but didn't give the plaintiffs as much extra time as they wanted.
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May 17, 2013
Wyndham, Hotel Callers End Suit Over Phone Recordings
A California federal judge on Wednesday signed off on the dismissal of two proposed class actions alleging Wyndham International Inc. illegally recorded phone calls to a toll-free hotel reservation number without telling callers, after the parties had requested that the case be dismissed.
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May 17, 2013
Marketing Calls For Johnny Knoxville Film Draw TCPA Suit
A California man on Thursday brought a putative class action against two film industry-connected research companies for using an automated dialing system to contact him about a screening for a new comedy from actor Johnny Knoxville, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
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May 17, 2013
Herrick Accused Of Tacking High Fees Onto Debt Notices
Herrick Feinstein LLP was hit with a putative class action Thursday in New Jersey federal court alleging it deceptively added unauthorized attorneys’ fees to debts it collected from consumers on behalf of a homeowners association, in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
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May 17, 2013
Shareholder Can't Get Head Start In S&P Suit, Judge Says
A Florida pension fund can't use a special proceeding to get an upper hand in before bringing a shareholder derivative suit against McGraw-Hill Financial Inc. over the role of its affiliate Standard & Poor's in the mortgage-backed securities crisis, a New York state judge ruled Friday.
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May 17, 2013
GSK Says Comcast Ruling Kills Avandia Injury Class Action
GlaxoSmithKline PLC on Friday urged a Pennsylvania federal judge to reject two Humana Inc. units’ bid for class certification over costs borne by the insurers for treating Medicare patients harmed by the drug Avandia, contending that it is barred by the Supreme Court’s recent Comcast decision.
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May 17, 2013
Citibank Asks Judge To Toss Reinsurance Fraud Class Action
Citibank NA on Thursday urged a Pennsylvania federal judge to toss a putative class action alleging it schemed with private mortgage insurers to push fraudulent reinsurance on home mortgages, saying homeowners waited too long to sue under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.
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May 17, 2013
Valspar Can't Decertify Managers' Misclassification Suit
A Minnesota federal judge Thursday refused to decertify a group of managers who sued Valspar Corp. over allegations the paint maker misclassified them as overtime-exempt, saying the employees had enough in common for the case to continue as a collective action.
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May 17, 2013
Highmark Says Policyholders Can't Seek Antitrust Damages
Highmark Inc. on Friday again asked a Pennsylvania federal judge to toss an antitrust class action in which health insurance buyers accuse it of conspiring to stifle competition and inflate rates, arguing that the rates were approved by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.
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May 16, 2013
Charles Schwab Lifts Client Class Action Ban
Charles Schwab Corp. will drop its class action waiver for disputes going forward, the brokerage said Wednesday, as opposition mounts against a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel's decision to allow such waivers.
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May 16, 2013
SinoTech Wins Initial Nod For $20M Deal To End IPO Suit
A New York federal judge on Thursday granted preliminary approval of a $20 million settlement in a class action alleging that SinoTech Energy Ltd. misled shareholders ahead of its $180 million initial public offering in 2010 and that its underwriters looked the other way.
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May 16, 2013
Fla. Force-Placed Insurance Suits Can Proceed, Judge Says
A Miami federal judge on Thursday refused to dismiss several putative class actions in Florida that claim a slew of major banks and insurance companies conspired to overcharge homeowners for force-placed insurance, also saying that the cases will move quickly.
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May 16, 2013
J&J To Stop Selling Metal Hips, Facing Thousands Of Suits
Johnson & Johnson subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. announced on Thursday that it will stop selling its controversial metal-on-metal replacement hips, following the filing of more than 10,000 lawsuits nationwide over a related product line and fierce scrutiny by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
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May 16, 2013
Purdue Puts Generic OxyContin Suits To Rest
Purdue Pharma LP on Thursday settled its suits against KVK-Tech Inc. and Varam Inc. in New York multidistrict litigation over plans to market a generic version of painkiller OxyContin.
Expert Analysis
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Rise Of The Machines — Predictive Coding Goes Mainstream
The pros of using predictive coding far outweigh the cons. Given the heavy pressure on law firms and in-house counsel to reduce discovery costs, as well as the Justice Department's recent stance on the subject, it appears predictive coding will continue to emerge from the obscure world of legal technology to the mainstream of legal practice, say Michael Moscato and Myles Bartley of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP.
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5 Overlooked Reasons To Be Class Rep In An Antitrust Suit
In many circumstances in antitrust litigation, standing up as a class representative may be an effective way to protect the company’s interests while assuring that it and other victims of anti-competitive behavior receive the monetary recovery they deserve, say Kellie Lerner and Ryan Marth of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP.
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Recent Trends In M&A And Corporate Fiduciary Litigation
In 2012, shareholders challenged 93 percent of all merger and acquisition transactions with a value greater than $100 million and 96 percent of M&A transactions with a value greater than $500 million. In other words, it almost is inevitable nowadays that litigation will follow a merger or going private announcement — with an average of about five lawsuits per transaction, say attorneys with Arnold & Porter LLP.
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Libor Litigation Must Overcome Significant Obstacles
When U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald dismissed a consolidated, multidistrict batch of antitrust and racketeering suits in Manhattan earlier this spring, she suggested plaintiffs seeking to recover from banking giants at the heart of the interest rate-fixing scandal might have better luck with securities fraud claims. But those plaintiffs will need to be lucky indeed. Two recent developments show that obstacles are inherent and, perhaps, insurmountable, say attorneys with Choate Hall & Stewart LLP.
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Tips For Your Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plan Policy
Now that investigations have been initiated by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the SEC into possible abuses by corporate executives of Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, the private securities bar inevitably will follow suit and file litigation. Nevertheless, these plans continue to be an effective defense against allegations of insider trading, say attorneys with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.
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What Sponsors Must Know About Litigation On Church Plans
Recently, two firms have filed class actions against three Catholic Church-affiliated health care facilities, claiming that their pension plans should be subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. These cases could have a profound effect on all church plan sponsors, regardless of whether they have previously obtained favorable church plan rulings, say attorneys with Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.
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E-Discovery In The Cloud: Who Can Get Your Data?
Many lawyers are asking whether placing electronically stored information in the cloud could inadvertently waive the attorney-client privilege and whether the government or a civil litigant could obtain ESI directly from a cloud service provider. In answering these questions, there are a number of aspects of the cloud worth considering, say Timothy Broas and Matthew Saxon of Winston & Strawn LLP.
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A Model For Facing Meritless Derivative Suits In Pa.
The decision by the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas in In re H.J. Heinz Co. Derivative and Class Action Litigation represents a faithful application of the American Law Institute’s Principles of Corporate Governance, which were formally adopted by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the landmark decision Cuker v. Mikalauskas, say attorneys with Dechert LLP.
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Horses Are Off The Shelves, But Litigation Will Continue
Regulators, food distributors and lawyers are scrambling to determine the legal and reputational consequences of the still-growing horse meat scandal that recently hit Europe. Amid the recalls, finger-pointing and consumer outrage, one thing remains certain: You will have time to bet on many Derby winners before this scandal is fully resolved, say attorneys with Cozen O'Connor.
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Sui Generis At Supreme Court
Not since Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933 have we seen a Supreme Court so imbalanced that it would throw its own power away as it did in Twombly, Iqbal and Concepcion, or devalue its own authority through matters of little interest, simply for the benefit of large American corporations, says Fred Isquith of Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP.