The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a class action settlement as “worthless” for absent class members in a recent federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case. The decision represents another addition to the growing list of FDCPA and other consumer-related class action settlements facing tough scrutiny where absent class members receive minimal or no monetary relief in proportion to …
Attorneys for families of some of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims have filed their first legal brief, seeking to have the state Supreme Court reinstate a lawsuit against gunmaker Remington Arms Co. In a 62-page document, attorney Josh Koskoff highlights the families’ contention that Remington knowingly marketed a military weapon to a high-risk class of young males fascinated …
The Supreme Court of Arkansas on Feb. 16 decided to uphold a Faulkner County Circuit Court certified a class of Conway police and firefighters who are seeking salary increases. Arkansas Supreme Court Associate Judge Rhonda K. Wood wrote in the court’s opinion that the case originated when Conway police officers and firefighters brought a class action lawsuit …
A federal judge in Houston has thrown out a lawsuit accusing UBS Group AG of hiding fraud by its client Enron Corp from retail customers, a decision that may end a 15-year legal battle stemming from the energy company’s December 2001 bankruptcy. In a 228-page decision on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon said UBS PaineWebber brokerage customers failed to …
A Philadelphia federal judge denied a Comcast Corp. call center employee’s bid for a class-action discrimination suit. The former employee, Wilbert Spencer Jr., says in the lawsuit that Comcast managers fired him for hanging up on a customer at the Newark, Del., call center after he lodged a discrimination complaint against his managers over a bad employee review. Comcast managers attempted to …
NEW ORLEANS — A Florida businessman’s litigation blocking World Trade Center development appears to be headed to the Louisiana Supreme Court, but the winning bidder’s spokesman has claimed validation in a recent appeals-court decision. “Today’s unanimous and strongly worded 4th Circuit ruling validates our contention that the plaintiff has no legitimate legal case and that this transformational …
Last summer, The New York Times reported indications that automakers, rather than being the victims of Takata’s missteps, had pressed their suppliers to put cost before all else. That report focused on General Motors, which is not named in the Florida case, though plaintiff lawyers said they were preparing to take action against the company. Advertisement The defect has prompted the nation’s …
A lawyer who led two lawsuits against Trump University, settled for $21 million just weeks after Donald Trump’s election victory, says the suits would have been “almost impossible” to pursue under a law currently being pushed by Republicans in Congress. Helen Zeldes, a founding partner of ZHE Law, investigated and initiated one of two class-action lawsuits against Trump University, along with a …
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by environmental groups involving a wolf- and coyote-shooting contest in Idaho, as part of a settlement agreement that requires federal officials to notify the groups if another contest is planned. The agreement Wednesday follows several years of court skirmishes between the groups and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management involving Idaho for …
A man from Syria who says he was tortured in his home country after converting to Christianity has no legal recourse against an Oklahoma church that published his name and baptism online, the state’s highest court ruled on Wednesday. The former Muslim, identified in the lawsuit only as “John Doe,” says that after his baptism in 2012 at the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Tulsa he returned …