Overall
Key cases
Industries
Intellectual Property
Labor & Employment
Corporate
Practice Areas
Privacy
-
February 9, 2012
Banks' $25B Reprieve Over Housing Crisis May Be Fleeting
A $25 billion deal between the nation's five biggest mortgage servicers, the federal government and 49 states takes a chunk of high-stakes civil litigation off the table, but attorneys say the financial giants still face extensive suits over the housing meltdown even with the landmark agreement.
-
February 9, 2012
Facebook Data Tracking Actions Consolidated In Calif.
Eleven class actions accusing Facebook Inc. of improperly tracking the Internet activity of its users after they had logged out of their accounts will be consolidated in the Northern District of California, a judicial panel said Wednesday.
-
February 9, 2012
BofA Mortgage Unit Inks $36M FTC Deal For Overcharges
A Bank of America Corp. mortgage servicing unit has agreed to finish refunding more than $36 million in illegal fees it charged against struggling homeowners in order to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations against it, the agency announced Thursday.
-
February 8, 2012
Continental Ducks Coverage For $198M Anthem Settlement
An Indiana state judge has ruled that Continental Casualty Co. has no obligation to cover defense costs or a $198 million settlement for Anthem Insurance Cos. Inc. in multidistrict litigation alleging the health insurer schemed to defraud health care providers.
-
February 7, 2012
Class Certified In 'Lichi Super Fruit' False Ad Suit
A California judge on Tuesday granted class certification in a suit alleging the makers of Lichi Super Fruit misled consumers into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars by falsely claiming the supplements help users lose weight.
-
February 7, 2012
Seafood Importer Must Pay $1M Over Fishy Labeling Practices
A California seafood company was sentenced Monday to pay $1 million in fines and community service payments for knowingly selling mislabeled frozen fish fillets, as part of a federal investigation into companies that allegedly mislabel Asian catfish imports in order to skirt anti-dumping duties.
-
February 7, 2012
Bayer, Merial Flea Product Class Actions Merged In Ohio
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Tuesday centralized in Ohio six class actions claiming Bayer HealthCare LLC and Merial Ltd.'s Frontline and Advantage flea and tick products are ineffective and accusing the companies of running deceptive advertisements for those products.
-
February 7, 2012
EU Court Backs Media's Freedom To Cover Celebrities
The European Court of Human Rights issued a pair of decisions Tuesday upholding the media's right to report on celebrities' private lives, rejecting a privacy claim by Monaco's Princess Caroline von Hannover and ruling German daily newspaper the Bild could cover an actor's arrest.
-
February 7, 2012
NYC Cabbies Lack Standing To Bring GPS Action: Judge
A federal judge on Monday tossed a proposed class action claiming New York City's use of GPS data to prosecute cab drivers violated their constitutional rights, saying the three plaintiffs were not currently facing any charges.
-
February 7, 2012
Energy Drink Consumer Denied Class Cert. In False Ad Suit
A California federal judge on Friday refused to certify a class action claiming Redline energy drink’s maker failed to disclose risks such as rapid heartbeat, deeming the plaintiff's attorneys inadequate to represent the class and calling their class certification motion “half-coherent" and "gibberish.”
-
February 6, 2012
Kraft, Hormel Shake Action Over Fat-Percentage Claims
A Florida federal judge dismissed a putative class action against Kraft Foods Global Inc. and Hormel Foods Corp. on Friday, ruling consumers hadn't shown the companies' claims about their deli meats were misleading in measuring fat content by weight, not by calories.
-
February 6, 2012
JPMorgan Reaches $110M Deal In Overdraft Fee MDL
JPMorgan Chase Bank NA on Friday became the latest bank to settle claims that it had breached customer contracts by charging exorbitant overdraft fees, posting notice of a proposed settlement that includes a $110 million payment to plaintiffs in the multidistrict case.
-
February 3, 2012
DOJ, McDermott Call Quits On Hospital Merger FOIA Suit
McDermott Will & Emery LLP and the U.S. Department of Justice agreed Friday to dismiss a Freedom of Information Act suit in Washington federal court seeking to force the agency to turn over records in connection with an antitrust investigation of a proposed merger between two Illinois hospital systems.
-
February 3, 2012
BofA Escapes Consumer Suit Over Unauthorized Fees
A California federal judge on Wednesday nixed a putative class action accusing Bank of America Corp. and affiliate Intersections Insurance Services Inc. of taking money out of customer bank accounts to pay for insurance policies for which they had never signed up.
-
February 3, 2012
Oreck Germ-Killing Ad Suits Consolidated In MDL
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Friday centralized in California six lawsuits claiming that Oreck Corp. falsely advertised that its Halo vacuum and three of its air purifiers could reduce the risk of flu and eliminate common germs and allergens.
-
February 1, 2012
Publix Fails To Kill Fla. ATM Fee Class Action
A Florida federal judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a proposed class action accusing Publix Super Markets Inc. of charging customers hidden fees to use ATMs, ruling the claims were detailed enough to allow the suit to move forward.
-
February 1, 2012
Oregon Joins $25B Mortgage Settlement With Lenders
Oregon on Wednesday decided to join a proposed $25 billion settlement under negotiation by multiple states and major banks accused of fraudulent foreclosure practices and other mortgage abuses, breaking with a pair of states that recently rejected the controversial deal.
-
February 1, 2012
PI Ordered To Reveal News Corp. Hacking Partners
A London court on Wednesday ordered private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to reveal who at News Corp.'s defunct tabloid News of the World hired him to hack into actor Steve Coogan's phone.
-
January 31, 2012
Chubb Off Hook In 'Shape Up' Coverage Dispute
A Texas federal judge ruled Monday that Chubb Custom Insurance Co. is not obligated to cover CSA Nutraceuticals GP LLC in a class action alleging that Shape Up nutritional supplements, endorsed by television show host Dr. Phil, didn't help consumers lose weight as advertised.
-
January 31, 2012
AmEx Cardholders Must Arbitrate Privacy Dispute: Judge
A Washington federal judge on Tuesday ruled that a proposed class of American Express credit-card holders should arbitrate their dispute with American Express Travel Related Services Inc. over personal financial information allegedly sent to American Express call centers overseas.
Expert Analysis
-
It May Take Two To Tango Under RESPA
The question up for decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Freeman v. Quicken Loans is simple: Can one party acting alone violate Section 8(b) of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act by simply charging an unearned fee for a settlement service, or does Section 8(b) apply only when two parties share such an unearned fee? The issue is a significant one for mortgage lenders and for the financial services industry as a whole, says Christopher Willis of Ballard Spahr LLP.
-
Think Before You Delete: Spoliation And E-Discovery
While there is no consensus among courts as to what steps need to be taken to avoid sanctions for spoliation of electronically stored information, the best way for companies to abide by new ESI rules is to implement a “preservation policy," says Tricia Legittino of Frandzel Robins Bloom & Csato LC.
-
Searching For Social Media Evidence
The fact that so many people are drawn to post details about their lives online — and that it is so, so easy — creates a treasure trove of information for attorneys. But getting this information into evidence is very new, and you may face an uphill battle, says David Barnard of Lathrop & Gage LLP.
-
CFPB's Supervisory Manual: Priorities And Procedures
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently adopted its first Supervision and Examination Manual, offering regulated financial institutions insight into CFPB enforcement priorities and procedures. The guide includes several points of importance to regulated companies as they prepare for the CFPB examination process, say Kelly Kramer and Elizabeth Oyer of Mayer Brown LLP.
-
HIPAA — Paper Law No More
Critics of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act have often claimed it is “paper law” with no real teeth behind it. Until recently, this might have been true. Yet provisions contained in HITECH — the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act — have strengthened civil and criminal enforcement of HIPAA in several important ways, say Maria Buckley and Maya Sethi of Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP.
-
Can A Privacy Policy Hinder Liquidation Of Assets?
Some privacy policies do not squarely address the circumstances in which a company is liquidating or dissolving. But the Federal Trade Commission recently gave us all a reason to revisit the wording we use in our privacy policies to enable the unfettered sale of information assets in bankruptcy, says Kristen Mathews of Proskauer Rose LLP.
-
Case Study: FICO V. Experian Information Solutions
The Federal Circuit decision in Therasense struck a blow to the high standards of candor the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office previously could expect of inventors and practitioners who practice before it. But other circuit courts have chosen to keep the bar high when it comes to professional standards of conduct in pursuing trademark registrations — for example, the Eighth Circuit in Fair Isaac Corp. v. Experian Information Solutions Inc., says Keith Stolte of McDermott Will & Emery LLP.
-
Defending Behavioral Ad Class Actions
With the spike in the use of digital advertising, class actions over behavioral advertising are trending upward. The litigation has remained primarily at the pleading stage, but when the cases proceed to class certification, there are a number of defenses available to defendants, say Dominique Shelton and Brent Austin of Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP.
-
Is Your Vendor Blowing The Whistle?
While much attention has focused on how the new Dodd-Frank whistleblower rules will impact the effectiveness of internal compliance programs and employer-employee relationships, the new rules pose a potentially greater threat from certain essential third-party vendors that have access to confidential company information, say Gerard Pecht, Darryl Anderson and Mary Beth Balhoff of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.
-
Restricting Credit Report Use For Employment Purposes
Similar to the laws in six other states, California's recently adopted AB 22 will restrict the discretion that private and public sector employers have to use consumer credit reports for hiring and personnel decisions. Given that several other states and the federal government are considering comparable legislation, employers who use credit reports for employment purposes should review and, if necessary, modify their policies, say Rod Fliegel and Jennifer Mora of Littler Mendelson PC.