Personal Injury Resources

Make no mistake about it, Apple loves their markup. So much in fact they have a monopoly. Wait, didn't people say Microsoft had a monopoly and sue them years ago? Hmm, maybe I should start a class action law suit demanding the freedom to run the OSX operating on any hardware I want. If any lawyers read this contact me, I'm in.

At this point, I was really concerned. I did some research online and it appears that JRA Furniture Industries, the company that makes this furniture, has filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy protection. Yes, I said Chapter 7–a total liquidation of assets. Apparently this is due to a class action law suit brought against them based on poor quality (i.e shatter-prone) glass table tops in some furniture they make for Martha Stewart (News article at Consumer Affairs.).

But there's another reason this needs to go away. What has angered me greatly was that there's no time for this. Not in a time when class action law suits are under assault by the Administration and the Corpor-o-crats who are trying to turn private businesses into law.

As recent as last year the FDA attempted to stop allowing the public from taking out class action law suits against the pharmaceutical companies http://www.newstarget.com/019497.html . This is further proof that they are not working for the interest of the people but for the interests of the pharmaceutical companies. Companies like Merck whose product called Vioxx which has caused a large number of deaths and injuries is being forced to pay out large amounts of settlements to the families and victims of their toxic product for their negligence..

I couldn’t believe they are so stupid as to do this. I am pursuing legal action against Shieldhost. No doubt there is a long list of victims who have tried their hostiing. A class action law suit is a definate possibility. I am continuing to keep the FTC informed.

One of the reasons I’m posting this is because the comments section in Kevin’s blog is closed - and you can’t post comments to the Mowser blog either. With Kevin claiming that many many people are up in arms and are asking him to start a class action law suit, but providing no names or links to those people (if I’m wrong, please point me to them), I think there should be a forum for people to express their outrage - or lack thereof. So feel free to use the comments below if you’re filled with RAGE!!! Or anti-RAGE!!! Or better yet, if you’re cool and neutral.

I think I’m just going to drop by their local office and complain every day. Maybe I’ll even file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Hopefully, they’ll get sick of me and put someone on it. I’ve read and heard others are a little ticked off at Time Warner, so maybe we can all get together and file a Class Action law suit.

And if you’re still bored, write a long ass comment so that other people can waste reading your worthless thoughts instead of mine for one day. I really don’t know what to talk about. There’s nothing going on in the world that really interests me except the fact that Soprano’s is about to start its last season. Actually maybe there is something interesting but this only applies to people who have cats and/or dogs. You need to get in on this class action law suit, easyyy money. Actually I’ll use that for my next post so let’s go on that.

According to QJNet Redrum6622 claims he has filed a class action law suit against Microsoft regarding the Fall Dash Update.Shortly after Xbox owners downloaded the Fall Update, complaints started Some claimed random system freezing in the middle of games. His expierence must have been even worse for him to file this class action lawsuit, if indeed he really did.

Even though Congress has been blocked, the courts have stepped in and offered some help. In 1999 two federal class action law suits were filed claiming violations of national and international laws regarding hazardous working conditions and working without pay. A third suit, in California State Court, accused U.S. retail firms of false advertising for the use of the “Made in USA” label.

Today a U.S. District Court dealt a major blow to a group of pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca ; Johnson & Johnson ; Schering-Plough and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. , denying the companies’ motion to dismiss a nationwide class action law suit alleging they defrauded consumers by illegally inflating the cost of prescription drugs.

Warner’s withdrawal does open up opportunities for other contenders fishing in the same pool, such as Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, and John Edwards, John Kerry’s running mate in 2004. The intelligent, low-key Bayh has yet to get much traction, but Edwards’ economic populism and relative moderation on cultural and foreign policy issues make him a strong contender in early caucus and primary states such as Iowa (where he surprised many with a second-place showing last time), Nevada (which has moved its primary up and where organized labour, a group with which Edwards is popular, is the dominant presence in Democratic politics) and his native North Carolina. Moreover, trial lawyers, while anathema in upscale Republican circles, are heroes in much of the south, where class action law suits are often seen as the “little guy”’s only option in getting his due. Edwards’ fellow trial lawyers also provide him with a ready-made donor base, one that helped him in 2004 and could do so again.

Seems like the love affair with Dr. Phil has come to an end. Perhaps he should have stayed with giving relationship advise, because his diet plan is complete crap. “Dr. Phil” was the recipient of a class action law suit that ended up in $10.5 million going back to his customers. Listen in to find out more, or click on the link to read it for yourself.

The other day a young boy of perhaps 6 years old came into my office wanting to spearhead a Restriction of Trade Class Action law suit. He said his name was Peter and this is what happened:

In effect, the law firm was literally orchestrating which firms to go after and paying potential plaintiffs to file suit and retain the firm on their behalf. While the settlements of these cases netted over $45 billion in the 10 year period ending in 2005, Milberg Weiss earned $1.7 billion in legal fees and costs. In fact, almost half of the securities class action settlements awarded during this period were brought by this law firm. Far from being a vehicle of justice for wronged plaintiffs, these class action law suits are an industry in which these types of law firms excel.

Needless to say, I was not happy and decided to go looking for this error code on the internet and see if anyone else had this problem. Immediately I felt better, I was not the only one with issues. Apparently anyone who has bought this washer is miserable. The only thing that bummed me out is that the class action law suit has already been settled. On the up side for Karolyn, the new front loading High Efficiency LG washer is on its way today.

The cost-benefit for rules is supposed to be even higher. Analysts cite customer estimates of cost savings of the BRMS over traditional coding at between %25 and %75. I think the true value of business rules lies not in the technology. Value is in the practice of rules stewardship. I have worked for more than one corporate customer where the lack of documented rules has caused class action lawsuits. Compute the cost of SOX non compliance or a class-action law suite; you will acheive a quick ROI.

Two new class action law suits have risen against Cingular and Verizon. In Cingular’s case, consumers are angry with the merger with AT&T, that is, users are tired of using AT&T’s legacy network systems and thereby being forced to incur more costs to upgrade to Cingular’s superior network systems. However, Cingular had promised AT&T users that they would enjoy their better systems free of charge in 2004. Now, a class action law suit has risen because Cingular is charging users a premium for the upgrade.

Last week, a settlement was announced in the class action law suit brought by Shorewest Realtors and other advertisers claiming that the paper had inflated it’s circulation numbers to artificially increase the price of advertising. Some more details have become available today.

Eventhough McDonald’s allergy information on their corporate website claims their french fries to be Gluten-free, THEY LIE! Don’t the bastards know some of us desperate for something other than turkey and rice rely on this information??? Fuckers. To top it off they are cooked in oil that contains dairy! Oh now they pissed me off. I should hop on that class action law suit just for the fun of it.

Heh heh. Alright, I confess that I found the anti-Christmas cards that I saw less than amusing. But these really crack me up (if you’ll forgive the pun). HT to Seraphim, who has an excellent post on Valentine’s Day that ends in a class action law suit against the “Greedy Commercializers of Emotion and Love.” You just gotta love a lawyer with a sense of humor.

Well, I figure I missed out on the class action law suit against the tobacco companies so here’s my chance to get in on one.

"A while ago someone suggested a way for ‘We The People’ to fight back as these treasonous liberals expose us to attack. The idea was to bring a class action law suit against the media outlets who recklessly expose our defense mechanisms to our enemies.

I recently had to install Adobe Reader a couple times because I reloaded my computer, got a new hard drive, and reloaded it again. I downloaded the file from adobe.com, double-clicked it, and selected the “custom install” option. I noticed that it had Yahoo Toolbar and Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition as part of the install. Well, I didn’t want any of that crap, so I went back to the web site to do a little looking around for just the file I wanted: plain vanilla adobe reader. That’s when I discovered what had happened. If you go to the download page and simply click the download button when it appears, you don’t get the plain-vanilla install option. But if you go to the page a wait a couple seconds, the opt-out check boxes appear for Yahoo and Photoshop! What is more, the page is carefully coded to have that effect so that more people download the extraneous software and fund adobe. I know, I know, “only a geek would care about that.” But the lawyer in me is also interested because this type of misleading web page may violate one of the new federal laws dealing with advertising software. Can you say “class action law-suit?”

Reading the book Freakonomics by Steve Levitt and realized in his discussion of Drug Dealers that, in terms of the potential earning growth, they are identical. Just like drug dealers, there is an overwhelming porportion of low waged “troops” working for zero name recognition, in the hope of that 1 in 1000 chance of making it beyond the lowest level. Drug dealer bosses and those lead lawyers in large class action law suites are so errily similar in their exponential earning potentials. I wonders how many PI lawyers dreams of a big payday instead of doing good for other people?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with two leading national class action law firms, today filed a lawsuit against Sony BMG, demanding that the company repair the damage done by the First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax software it included on over 24 million music CDs.

According to the Associated Press Today, EA has settled one of the pending class action law suits against it for allegedly failing to pay overtime. They paid $15.6 million to the computer graphic artists. The suit with the engineers is still pending. Meanwhile, here is a nice cartoon.

Oh, I also found there are several class action law suits in the works for not only the rebate scam but other incidences of fraud. A San Francisco law firm has filed a class action suit against Dell Inc., and financial partner CIT Bank, claiming that they are systematically deceiving customers who buy Dell products.

Just when we thought that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers had no paper trail, we find that the law firm that she was heading at the time paid $22M to settle a class action law suit for assisting law firm clients in defrauding investors, as noted here and picked up by HuffingtonPost.com. The original source: No less than the Class Action Newsletter (May 1, 2000).

I am considering launching a class action law suit. I am sending a copy of this to Maple Leaf Foods through their website.

Since everyone in America sues everyone else (especially if you live in California or took Celebrex), I am suggesting a class action law suit against VCA for real and punitive damages. I figure I can do a reasonable imitation of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (acute) within the next 30 days, and I found a physician who routinely prescribes Oxycontin for the pain of losing and the agony of defeat.

It’s not clear if the Motorola E815 will suffer the same Bluetooth problems that the V710 did. The limitation of Bluetooth in the V710 even led to a class action law suit.

I want to express my deepest gratitude to America’s trial lawyers, especially those kings of torts who initiate class action suits to rescue injured parties like myself from any responsibilities for my lousy decisions. You see, during the big investment bubble of 1999-2000, when stock values went only one direction—up—I took a small position in two can’t-miss stars: WorldCom and Global Crossing. Well, guess what? Both stocks tanked, and the executives of both companies were charged with ethical malfeasance.

Would you really want your name associated with this lawsuit?

More than 400,000 customers of a Canadian company that sells penis-enlargement products may be eligible to join a lawsuit claiming the oils and herbal supplements don't work, a Denver federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Shorewest Realtors, a huge advertiser with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel over the past several years has filed a class action law suit against Journal Sentinel Inc. and they are inviting other advertisers to join in the suit. They are claiming that the the paper has inflated it’s paid circulation numbers since 1996.

[…] circulation, fearful of more backlash from advertisers. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is fighting off a class action law suit from it’s advertisers, who are alleging that Journal Communications h […]

Ridley Inc. expressed some surprise at being included in a class action lawsuit initiated by farmers in several Canadian provinces claiming damages allegedly suffered due to the closing of the U.S. border to Canadian cattle exports in May, 2003 after the discovery of a BSE infected cow in Alberta, Canada.

An article in the New York Times discusses the role of N.Y. Comptroller Alan Hevesi, whose responsibilities include being the sole fiduciary responsible for the New York Common Retirement Fund, which has assets of $120 billion, as the lead plaintiff in securities class action law suits. The Common Retirement Fund was the lead plaintiff in the WorldCom litigation that resulted in settlements of over $6 billion and is currently in trial against Arthur Andersen, the last remaining defendant (see earlier post here). ...

The LAT's Doug Smith traces the source of a check his son received for $0.49 from Bank of America as his share of a class action law suit. Just another cost of doing business in America.

OK, I agree it's easy to yuck it up about getting $.49 in payment for damages you never even knew you suffered, or to foam at the mouth over lawyers making unconscionable fees, but wait a sec here - class action lawsuits are the only form of external corporate governance I know of that leave behind an acceptably small footprint.

The suit, filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, alleges that DirectRevenue LLC "unlawfully used and damaged plaintiffs' computers to make money for themselves while willfully disregarding plaintiffs' rights to use and enjoy their personal property."

According to the suit, the spyware infiltrated users' computers to learn their Internet browsing habits and track their Internet use.

Jamster, a ringtone and mobile content sales company, has been sued for false advertising. The suit which was filed in San Diego states that Jamster falsely advertises that users can get a free ringtone. In reality said ringtones cost $1.99.

Jamster is the U.S. name of Jamba, a German mobile content provider that VeriSign acquired in June 2004. VeriSign is no stranger to consumer wrath. T-Mobile USA and Cingular Wireless are also named on the suit, presumedly because they allow Jamster to bill for "free" services.

A lawyer for a group of WorldCom Inc. stockholders and bondholders said former auditor Arthur Andersen LLP was more concerned with "lining its own pockets" than catching a massive accounting fraud at the telecommunications company.

As opening statements began in a class-action lawsuit here on Tuesday, Sean Coffey, who is representing the case's lead plaintiff New York State Common Retirement Fund, said auditors at Arthur Andersen were the only people in a position to catch the fraud and put a stop to it early. Instead of asking tough questions of WorldCom's top executives or continuing to demand access to company records, Andersen shrugged its shoulders and acquiesced to a client that paid the firm more than $40 million in auditing and consulting fees in a three-year span, Coffey said.

US law firm Schnatz & Nobel has filed a class action lawsuit against Electronic Arts in Northern California, alleging that the publishing giant issued false or misleading public statements regarding its financial performance.

The firm, which is seeking class action status for the suit, has filed on behalf of anyone who bought shares in Electronic Arts between January 25th and March 21st - the date on which EA issued a profit warning and announced a major shortfall in its Q4 revenues.

We faxed the copy of the cashed money order from our bank and letter stating the facts to Malasia twice and san,diego. They claim the don’t know any thing about it. Look if anyone else is thinking Class action law suit then count us in. Between constant calls saying we did not pay and trips to kinkkos to fax letter, we have’nt had time to grieve my mothers death. Look its fraud and I’m sure of it now. How does a company do this?

TXU on Friday agreed to pay $150m to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the US utility misled investors about its strategy and financial performance.

Dallas-based TXU denied any liability in the action first brought in October 2002, but also agreed to look at tightening its corporate governance standards following negotiations lasting more than eight months. Counsel for the plaintiffs said the proposed settlement required these changes to be made.

A federal judge has dismissed a class-action lawsuit filed against Aquila Inc., allowing the utility to avoid potential damages in the millions at a time when it wants to sell some of its operations to pay its massive debt.

The lawsuit charged that shareholders were cheated when the company, then known as UtiliCorp United, reacquired part of its energy trading operation three years ago. U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. granted summary judgment to Aquila on Wednesday.

A class action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of purchasers of ChoicePoint Inc. common stock during the period between April 22, 2004 and March 3, 2005 (the "Class Period"), the law firm Lerach Coughlin announced March 10, 2005.

The suit comes after ChoicePoint disclosed in February that a secruity breach of its systems compromised personal information on as many as 145,000 consumers nationwide - including credit reports and Social Security numbers.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, defendants disseminated materially false and misleading statements concerning the security of the Company's systems, its results and operations.

"At the same time ChoicePoint's security breaches were concealed, two of the Company's top officers sold $20.89 million worth of their ChoicePoint stock," according to the lawsuit.

I sought out information about the lawsuit at the Zylon vest class action website but it had nothing useful. A year-old Detroit News piece, Cop death tarnishes armored vest maker, covers the background to the suits pretty well and clearly favors the company. The article mentions the two reputed failures of SCBA/Zylon vests. The first involved an Oceanside, California officer who was killed in the line of duty while wearing a Second Chance vest. The article repeats the company view that the fatal hit came at the edge, where vests often fail to stop bullets. The second incident that happened in Pennsylvania a few days later incontrovertibly involved vest failure and led directly to the Department of Justice getting involved.

The Complaint charges defendants with violations of the federal securities laws, specifically Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 14a-9 promulgated thereunder. The Complaint alleges that the defendants have issued materially misleading proxy statements (the “Proxy Statements”) to the limited partners of the Textainer Partnerships requesting that the limited partners grant proxies to be voted in favor of the Sale and related proposals. In the action, the plaintiff alleges that (1) the Proxy Statements failed to appropriately disclose that the prices at which the assets of the Partnerships were to be sold were materially lower than current market conditions would dictate; (2) the Proxy Statements omitted to state that there was a risk that the Partnership’s Assets were being sold at a value below the market because Textainer Financial and its affiliates had required any bidder agree Textainer Equipment Management Limited be retained to manage the assets of the Partnerships after they were sold, a condition which effectively eliminated other container leasing companies from the bidding process or artificially capped the amount that they would bid; adjustments made to the pricing of the Sale did not account for the increasing value of containers; and (3) the Proxy Statements omitted to state other material facts that an investor would consider important in deciding whether to grant their proxies to be voted in favor of the Sale and the related proposals.

A police department in New York is suing Ford Motor Company because they feel that the cars they’ve been buying from the company, the Crown Victorias, are unsafe.

Chicago Tribune - About a year ago, Buffalo Grove police joined a class-action lawsuit against Ford Motor Co. alleging that the company’s Crown Victoria sedans, the car of choice for most law-enforcement agencies, weren’t safe.

Except now they’re going to drop out of the lawsuit. Why? Because they want to buy more Crown Victorias from Ford and Ford won’t sell them.

The complaint charges Audible, Donald R. Katz (Chairman and CEO), and Andrew P. Kaplan (CFO) with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. More specifically, the complaint alleges that the Company failed to disclose and misrepresented the following material adverse facts which were known to defendants or recklessly disregarded by them: (1) that the Company intended to pursue new business initiatives; (2) that the Company's growth, through these expensive initiatives, would severely undermine Audible's margins and earnings; and (3) that as a consequence of the foregoing the Company's ambitious growth plan posed a substantial risk to the future stability of the Company and its stock price.

During the Class Period, defendants concealed the fact that Dexanabinol, the company's flagship drug product for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) trial was not exhibiting materially favorable reaction. Prior to disclosing this information to the public, Pharmos sold millions worth of stock in private placements. Furthermore, the Company's CEO sold 20% of his holdings and its President sold almost 50% of his holdings. Such sales occurred after the close of Phase III enrollment and after the six month post-enrollment period concluded. On December 20, 2004, just weeks after insiders sold 400,000 shares of stock, Pharmos announced that Dexanabinol was not found to be materially effective in Phase III testing. Furthermore, after years of touting the effectiveness of Dexanabinol, the Company abruptly ceased its effort to gain approval for Dexanabinol for TBI.

Class action law suits in the US are still pending, but Adecco said it believed they had no merit and had filed to have them dismissed, although it added that there could be no assurance that the resolution of any of these matters would not have a material effect on the group.

The Complaint alleges that defendants violated Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. Unbeknownst to the market until February 15, 2005, from approximately October 2003 through October 2004 criminals using "low-tech" methods had been able to access thousands of records containing personal information maintained by ChoicePoint. Throughout the Class Period, the Defendants made material misrepresentations and/or omitted to make material disclosures by falsely claiming that ChoicePoint had unique capabilities and systems in place to enable the responsible use of information while ensuring the protection of personal privacy. Defendants also falsely claimed during the Class Period that the theft of consumer data they recently announced was unprecedented and that the Company welcomes national discussion on how to ensure that information is used responsibly.

As the market learned in February, 2005, ChoicePoint did not have adequate controls in place to protect the privacy of the information it compiled and sold. Defendants became aware of the criminals' access of the Company's records in October of 2004. Despite knowing of this serious threat to consumer privacy and despite knowing that their representations about the security of ChoicePoint's data were inaccurate, Defendants waited until February 15 of this year to disclose any information about the breach in Company security. As the market learned on March 2, 2005, a similar incident occurred five years ago resulting in the disclosure of 7,000 records. Notwithstanding their nondisclosure and misstatements, Defendants Smith and Curling sold over eighteen million dollars of stock between the time they discovered the criminals' access and their initial disclosure of the breach of their system in February.

Consumers whose private information may have been put at risk due to the recent security breaches at ChoicePoint now have a new consumer information and action center available at www.ChoicePointClassAction.com. The website will feature up to the minute news on the ChoicePoint case as well as the pending Choicepoint litigation.

“The ChoicePoint class action site is designed to continually update those consumers who may have been affected by the security breaches at ChoicePoint,” said Leonard Bennett, lead counsel for the ChoicePoint class. “Our goal is to provide the latest news and information to those consumers who are members of the ChoicePoint class and point them to resources for coping with the effects of identity theft.”

On March 10, 2005 it was disclosed that EchoStar's audit committee had launched an internal accounting probe and that the Company and Defendant Ergen, the Chief Executive Officer, were the subjects of an SEC inquiry. According to a March 10, 2005 Reuters article, the probe relates to the booking of transactions with suppliers and consulting payments to a friend of Ergen's. A Bloomberg article reported unnamed sources claimed that the investigation had uncovered "evidence," including "company records that showed Ergen may have directed or authorized vendor transactions and consulting payments to an unidentified friend." The Bloomberg article also noted that since July 2004, the SEC has been examining the way EchoStar and other companies in the telecommunications industry account for subscribers.

The Complaint alleges that Forest Labs violated federal securities laws by issuing false or misleading public statements. Specifically, the Complaint alleges that Forest Labs concealed deficiencies with its Celexa/Lexapro drugs in treating adolescent depression and when Forest Labs ultimately disclosed an agreement with the New York State Attorney General to make available summaries of previously undisclosed studies on the drugs, the price of Forest Labs stock dropped to as low as $36 per share.

A Cook County Circuit Court judge gave preliminary approval to a $38 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit accusing Aon Corp. of taking hidden payments from insurance companies.

The settlement occurred less than a week after the Chicago-based insurance broker agreed to pay $190 million to settle separate civil complaints brought by the attorneys general of Illinois, New York and Connecticut.

The suits described secret deals with insurers in which Aon profited at the expense of customers who may have overpaid for insurance coverage.

The claim, filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, alleges misrepresentation of Nortel's financial situation between April 24, 200, and April 27, 2004.

Nortel announced last April 28 that it had dismissed Dunn and two other executives for cause. It also disclosed that its 2003 profit was substantially less than it had stated three months earlier.The announcement sent Nortel shares plunging.

The city (Los Angeles) sued the four online travel companies, alleging that Los Angeles is losing about $10 million a year in hotel taxes because of the way the sites price their trips.

Like traditional travel agents, the Web sites negotiate discount rates with hotels, then mark them up and sell them to consumers. The suit alleges that the companies charge and collect taxes based on the higher rate but pay the city's 14 percent hotel tax based on the lower rates, then pocket the difference.

My research (summary here) shows that awards against out-of-state defendants are much higher in states that select their judges using partisan elections compared to other states. I have little doubt that the plaintiff's lawyers (or their firm) are big contributors to Judge Donald Floyd's reelection campaign (this is neither illegal nor uncommon in Texas).

The Complaint alleges that Viisage violated federal securities laws by issuing false or misleading information. Specifically, Viisage borrowed funds from its controlling shareholder, and was in dire need of a credit line adequate to finance its ongoing business needs. In order to secure such credit, the defendants engaged in a scheme to artificially engineer a profit in the third quarter of 2004, and made earnings projections known by them to be baseless. The third quarter profit, which was reported on October 25, 2004, was only made possible through various accounting manipulations, whereby certain assets were prematurely recognized, while certain expenses were artificially deferred from the third quarter of 2004 into the fourth quarter of 2004.

On February 27, 2005, defendants disclosed numerous fourth quarter charges and a significant asset impairment, all of which returned Viisage to substantial unprofitability. On this news, Viisage stock fell over 20%. Then, on March 2, 2005, defendants announced that Viisage had a "material weakness" in its internal financial controls, and that BDO Seidman LLP, the Company’s external accounting firm, would issue an adverse opinion with respect to the effectiveness of the Company’s internal controls over financial reporting. As a result, the stock plummeted an additional 20%, to close at $4.50 on March 3, 2005.

Using misappropriated passwords and identifications from legitimate customers, intruders got access to personal information on as many as 32,000 U.S. citizens in a database owned by Lexis Nexis, the company's corporate parent said Wednesday.

Reed Elsevier Group PLC said the breach of its recently acquired Seisint unit was being investigated by staff and by U.S. law enforcement authorities.

Boca Raton, Fla.-based Seisint stores millions of personal records including individuals' addresses and social security numbers. Customers include police and legal professionals and public and private sector organizations.

Reed Elsevier bought Seisint — which provides data for Matrix, a crime and terrorism database project funded by the U.S. government that has raised concerns among civil liberties groups — for $775 million in August.

The suit charges that the defendants violated federal securities laws by issuing a series of false and misleading statements to the market that led to artificial inflation of the market price for the company's securities.

It was filed on behalf of shareholders who purchased or acquired Delphi stock between Jan. 17, 2001 and March 3, 2005.

The lawsuit follows the results of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation that found Delphi had overstated its profits and misrepresented how much cash it had from its operations.

The complaint alleges that Direct General's financial statements and defendants' disclosures throughout the Class Period regarding the Company's financial statements were materially false and misleading in that Direct General was failing to properly adjust for loss reserves with respect to a change in the law related to personal injury protection coverage in Florida. Beginning with policies issued on or after October 1, 2003, Florida mandated that the maximum personal injury protection coverage deductible be reduced from $2,000 per occurrence to $1,000 and that the limit be increased to $10,000 in excess of the deductible as opposed to $10,000 less the deductible. The Complaint further alleges that as result of this, the Company had to further increase its reserves by approximately $2.2 million, and as a consequence of the foregoing, the Company's income was materially overstated at all relevant times. On January 26, 2005, Direct General announced that it would be adjusting its loss reserves and changing its reserve analysis. Following this news, Direct General's stock price dropped more than 31% on January 27, 2005, on heavy trading volume.

The complaint charges Bradley Pharmaceuticals, Daniel Glassman and R. Brent Lenczycki with violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder. The complaint alleges that the defendants failed to disclose and misrepresented the following material adverse facts: (1) that the Company was materially overstating its financial results by engaging in improper accounting practices; (2) that the Company's future sales growth from its Keralac(TM) franchise would be hindered by generic competition; and (3) as a result of the foregoing misrepresentations and omissions, there was no reasonable basis for the Company's revenue and earnings guidance.

Homestore Inc. said on Monday it finalized the settlement of the class action law suit filed against the online real estate company in December 2001.

The sole remaining objector to the settlement between Homestore and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, or CalSTRS, has dismissed his appeal with prejudice.

The move concluded the appeals process, which began after Homestore received final trial court approval of the shareholder class action settlement agreement in March 2004.

The complaint alleges that Vishay has made a tender offer to exchange 2.64 shares of Vishay common stock for each outstanding share of Siliconix stock, an offer valued at approximately $34.98 per Siliconix share (the "Exchange Ratio"). This price represents a discount of approximately 11% from Siliconix's 52-week average of $39.20, and a substantial discount to its 52-week high of $59.62. Following the tender offer, Vishay intends to effect a merger of Siliconix with a subsidiary of Vishay (the "Merger").

The Complaint further alleges that Vishay is trying to take advantage of the fact that the market price of Siliconix stock does not fully reflect the progress and future value of the Company, that Vishay's offer has been dictated by Vishay to serve its own interests and that Vishay seeks to force Siliconix's minority shareholders to relinquish their Siliconix shares at a grossly unfair price and that such action constitutes unfair dealing.

Bank of America Corp. agreed Thursday to pay $460.5 million to settle its part of the massive WorldCom Inc. class-action shareholder lawsuit, putting additional pressure on the 14 remaining banking defendants to settle as well.

Plaintiffs in the case, led by the New York State Common Retirement Fund, allege that Bank of America and other banks helped sell billions in WorldCom stock and bonds to investors in 2000 and 2001 even though they knew the telecommunications firm was falsifying its books. The banks have generally argued that they could not have known about WorldCom's fraud.

Bank of America denied breaking any laws in agreeing to the settlement. The firm said in a statement, "Bank of America believes it is in the best interests of the company to resolve these claims and put this litigation behind it and focus efforts on creating greater value for the shareholder."

Not yet, but American copyright law makes it possible. Blawger Reasonable Man says you own your own words when published. Conceivably commenters might sue for a share of ad revenue, or a partnership stake in the blog.

"Who owns blog comments?" also suggests a blog's Terms Of Service can be written to assign some of the commenter's rights to the blogger, so a blogger can keep the post as part of the web site and protect its conversations.

As bloggers add defensive TOS, look for some bloggers to create predatory terms where all your comments belong to the blogger, no rights left for the commenter.

An engineer working for leading publisher Electronic Arts has become the second staff member to file a class action lawsuit against the company, seeking back pay, damages and penalties for unpaid overtime hours.

Leander Hasty, who has worked for the firm since mid-2003, filed his suit yesterday against the company, arguing that a special Californian law which exempts certain creative professionals from overtime regulations should not apply to EA's engineering staff.

The Californian law, instituted in 2000, says that programmers who make more than $41 an hour and are working in creative or intellectual roles on advanced technology projects - a definition which Hasty's lawyers challenge in the case of EA employees.

As reported earlier (see below), consumers have started a class action suit against ChoicePoint. This tape snafu at Bank of America looks like a class action suit waiting to happen. For one thing, pockets are little deeper at BofA then ChoicePoint. BofA's public relations may be satisfied with the story that the data tapes were lost and not stolen, but its customers may not feel the same way.

A "small" number of backup tapes with records detailing the financial information of government employees were lost in shipment to a backup center, Bank of America said on Friday.

The tapes contained information on the customers and accounts of the U.S. government's SmartPay charge card program, which has more than 2.1 million members and annual transactions totaling more than $21 billion, according to the General Services Administration. Reports have pegged the number of cards affected at 1.2 million.

"Federal law enforcement officials were immediately engaged when the tapes were discovered missing, and subsequently conducted a thorough investigation into the matter, working closely with Bank of America," the bank said in a statement. "The investigation to date has found no evidence to suggest the tapes or their content have been accessed or misused, and the tapes are now presumed lost."

The acknowledgment comes as several other cases of businesses losing consumer information have come to light. Last week, data collection company ChoicePoint announced that it had given information on approximately 150,000 subscribers to about 50 fake business fronts created by fraudsters.

On the face of it, this seems like a lame suit. Auctions never force people to pay more money.

EBay Inc. (EBAY.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is being sued by a Pennsylvania man who charges that it illegally forces up prices when certain high bidders raise their maximum bid to guard against last-minute offers, an attorney for the plaintiffs said on Wednesday.

In a proposed class-action lawsuit filed Feb. 17 in Santa Clara County Superior Court, lead plaintiff Glenn Block claims that eBay raised his bid from $111 to $112.50 after he responded to an e-mail from auction site that said he was the highest bidder for an item.

The email warned that he could be outbid if he did not increase his maximum.

Block alleged that he could have won the auction at $111, and accused eBay of forcing him to overpay by $1.50.

"Based on what we know about what's being alleged, it appears the plaintiff completely misunderstands the functionality of the eBay bidding system," eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said. He said the company had not yet seen the lawsuit.

Customers claim Dell used bait-and-switch. Since Dell does just-in-time manufacturing, this is a class action claim based on either a problem with Dell manufacturing talking to Dell web operations or something more willful.

Two San Francisco residents have filed a class-action lawsuit against computer manufacturer Dell, alleging the company regularly uses bait-and-switch techniques, and promises favorable financing terms that it doesn't deliver.

The suit was filed Feb. 14 in San Francisco County Superior Court by Rosemary M. Weber and Jonathan V. Holtzman, both San Francisco residents.

In the lawsuit, Weber said she called Dell in July 2003 to order a laptop computer she had seen advertised for $599. She also decided to buy a printer for $89 and opted to finance the purchase with Dell, though she did not learn exact terms of the financing. When her bill came, the complaint said, Weber was surprised that it was for more than $1,300.

Plaintiff Holtzman alleged that when he purchased two new computers from Dell in November 2003, the company shipped him ``lesser-quality computer systems at the price at which Dell agreed to sell the higher-quality systems.'' His repeated efforts to resolve the problem failed, the complaint said.

Also named as defendants in the lawsuit were Dell Financial Services and CIT Bank.

Legal perspective from Wired on the ChoicePoint case.

[F]or the individuals whose identities were actually stolen, there is likely to be no recourse for their ruined credit histories and the countless hours it will take them to restore their good names.

Attorney Charles Merrill pointed to a case in South Carolina as an example of what could happen to victims who try to sue ChoicePoint for not screening buyers of their data carefully.

In that case, a victim of identity theft tried to sue Citibank and two credit card companies for damages suffered after an unknown perpetrator stole his identity and opened accounts with Citibank, Capital One and Premier Bankcard in his name. The district court threw the case out, saying that the consumer had no valid claim against the financial companies because he wasn't their customer. Two other cases in different states have had the same outcome.

Consumers could find themselves in the same dilemma with ChoicePoint, since they are not customers of ChoicePoint.

But Andrea Matwyshyn, an assistant professor of law at Northwestern University who specializes in technology regulation and information security best practices, said that judges could determine that ChoicePoint did have a relationship with the public, albeit an indirect one, and assumed a certain level of responsibility for individuals' data when it decided to collect and sell private information.

"Different judges make different decisions," she said. "There's a lot of room for maneuvering here, and the case law involving identity theft is going to develop in a very uneven, messy fashion for a while until it settles out."

ChoicePoint has billions of credit records on businesses and individuals. It sells those records to companies doing credit research. Criminals posing as businessmen gained access to ChoicePoint's data. 700 cases of identity theft related to the illegal ChoicePoint have been reported in Los Angeles alone. A California woman has sued ChoicePoint for fraud and negligence.

ChoicePoint maintains a database of information, including bank and criminal data, on virtually ever U.S. consumer. That information is sold to government agencies, prospective lenders and others.

The identity thieves were able to access Social Security numbers, credit histories, criminal records and other sensitive data, ChoicePoint has said.

The suit seeks to represent anyone whose personal records were maintained by ChoicePoint from October 2004 through the completion of the suit, regardless of whether or not that data was actually released to anyone.

It also claims that prospective class members, possibly numbering at least 145,000 in total, have suffered damages of less than $75,000 each.

With all the mudslides in Southern California this winter due to the unusually high rain totals, consumers are finding out their homeowner policies don't cover pesky problems like mudslides. Will there be a class action suit as a result?

Are flooding and mudslides covered by most common homeowners insurance policies? No. Standard homeowners insurance covers rain and wind damage but not property ruined by flooding, landslides or mud. The rule of thumb is that if the damage is caused by falling rain, it's covered; if it's caused by rising water, it's not. advertisement advertisement Flood insurance is available but takes 30 days to activate and costs $300 to $600 a year, according to the Insurance Information Network of California. Although no carrier protects against landslides, flood insurance may cover minor mud damage, said Pete Moraga, a spokesman for the network.

Here's a good analysis of the practical impact of the class-action law just passed by the Senate. Click on link above for the full implications.

This week, the U.S. Senate has been working on the committee-reported text of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (S5). According to press reports like one from Reuters, the bill will "move most large multi-state class action lawsuits into more stringent federal courts." The measure is widely expected to pass Congress and be signed by President Bush. Here are some quick thoughts from a class-action lawyer about the bill and what will happen if it's signed into law as currently proposed:

* The new law will mean a lot of work for federal trial and appellate courts. As has been reported, almost every class action will become a federal case;
* The law won't affect plaintiffs' firms like Cohen Milstein and Milberg Weiss that primarily limit their class-action practices to federal courts;
* The law won't affect those plaintiffs' firms that specialize in federal laws and remedies such as ERISA; by its nature, the law only affects class actions based on state law;
* Since filing objections to class-action settlements is much more difficult in federal court than in state court, the law may put a lot of professional objectors out of business;
* Class-action lawyers unfamiliar with the rules and procedures of federal court will have to adapt or find a new line of work;
* Class-action lawyers unfamiliar with the rules and procedures of the MDL will also have to adapt or find a new line of work;
* Many lawyers accustomed to state court won't adapt. By driving the small-firm competition away from class actions, the law will strengthen many large plaintiffs' firms;
* Companies that have wronged consumers might find themselves faced with more lawsuits, not less, since one response to the new law, which makes multistate class actions harder to achieve, will be to file the same lawsuits in the federal court of every state with a large population; even though these various lawsuits will be consolidated by the MDL, there might be strategic reasons for the multiple lawsuits;

A good report on the changes to class-action law recently passed in the U.S. Senate.

This is terrific news. (H/T OTB)

The Senate voted overwhelmingly today to shift many class-action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts, handing President Bush and his supporters in the business world a major legislative triumph. The 72-to-26 vote sends the bill to the House of Representatives, where it will probably be quickly passed and sped on its way to the desk of the president, who is eager to sign it. Passage in the House seems assured, since that chamber overwhelmingly endorsed similar legislation last year, before it stalled in the Senate. This time, though, the idea was backed by enough senators, Democrats as well as Republicans, that passage was not in doubt.

A nice margin on that vote as well. Passage in the House is guarranteed. Still there are critics. Including this via Kevin Drum.

But critics of the bill have said it may effectively create an impossible situation for many plaintiffs, since federal courts are barred under a 1985 Supreme Court ruling from considering class actions in which there are "material" differences in the laws among the affected states. Thus, the critics say, the law may create a "Catch-22" in which class-action plaintiffs find both federal and state courthouse doors locked.

The catch-22 is fictional. The jurisdiction of the federal courts is set by the legislature. This bill gives them jurisdiction on these grounds: