Public Justice is co-lead counsel in a California Supreme Court case that presents an important issue of class certification: whether a plaintiff must demonstrate that absent class members can be identified, or “ascertained,” at the class certification stage. Our position is that, at most, Rule 23 and the analogous California rule regulating class actions require that…
Ninety percent of the prescription drugs consumed in the United States are generic forms of brand-name drugs. But under U.S. Supreme Court case law, generic drug companies can’t be sued for failing to warn consumers of the dangers of their drug, no matter how inadequate the label may be. Public Justice was lead counsel before…
In this consumer class action, the plaintiffs alleged that Herb Thyme Farms, Inc. deliberately mixed organic herbs with non-organic herbs and sold them to the public as “100% organic.” Herb Thyme argued that the consumers’ state law claims were preempted by federal law governing certification of organic products. Herb Thyme Farms had one small farm…
We are lead counsel in this appeal of a dismissal of a multistate class action alleging that the defendant pharmaceutical companies violated various state consumer protection statutes by purposely packaging their prescription eye drops in droppers that emitted a far larger drop than is therapeutically necessary. The plaintiffs cited studies concluding that packaging producing a…
DirecTV was sued by the U.S. Department of Labor for failing to pay overtime wages to its TV installers, in violation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). DirecTV had tried to avoid paying overtime wages to its workers by “subcontracting” its installation services to another company, which has since gone bankrupt. We represented the…
This is a putative class action on behalf of people who purchased Samsung’s Galaxy S3 smartphone before learning that many of the technologies used in the phone allegedly infringed upon Apple patents—allegations which resulted in a multi-million-dollar jury verdict against Samsung. In response to this consumer class action, Samsung invoked its arbitration clause, which was…
This was an appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals to keep a consumer class action against debt buyer Midland Funding in court and to prevent Midland from forcing the dispute into arbitration on an individual, non-class basis. Midland had operated in Maryland for two and a half years without the license that all collection…
This is an appeal involving the enforceability of a payday lender’s arbitration agreement that purports to require arbitration in a forum that doesn’t exist, and pursuant to rules that don’t exist. Army veteran Joshua Parnell brought a class action against a predatory lender relating to its 233% interest rates and illegal origination fees. The lender,…
In an enforcement action by the Federal Trade Commission against payday lender AMG Services for charging consumers undisclosed and inflated fees, the court found that lenders violated federal law when they misrepresented to consumers how much loans would cost them. We represented Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) as an intervenor in the case, and successfully…