CLASSIFIED: Carlton Fields' Class Action Blog

Former Abbott employees have sued Abbott Laboratories, alleging that the healthcare products company cheated them out of their retirement benefits.  The lawsuit stems from Abbott Laboratories spinoff into a separate company, Hospira, which is also named in the suit.  The plaintiffs allege that they were promised a similar benefits package at Hospira, but that is not what they received.

 

A class action lawsuit has been filed against U.S. Fidelis.  The plaintiffs allege that they purchased extended vehicle protection to cover their vehicles in the event of a repair, but that the policy included so much fine print that they were ultimately left out in the cold. 

Homebuilder Lennar Corporation has been named in a class action lawsuit brought by plaintiff homeowners who bought homes built with Chinese drywall.  The plaintiffs claim that the drywall emitted gases that made them sick. 

 

Workers who have lost their jobs in the recession are more likely to bring lawsuits against their prior employers given the bleak job market.  Some of these suits are class action lawsuits.  HomeBanc employees brought a class action lawsuit against the Atlanta-based mortgage lender for not giving them ample notice of their dismissal. 

 

Banking software firm Fiserv was hit with a $1 billion class action lawsuit on April 2.  The plaintiffs allege that Fiserv should share responsibility for the fate of securities and cash Bernard Madoff was supposedly managing.  The plaintiffs allege that while Fiserv was the designated custodian for the plaintiffs’ IRA and pension accounts the designation was fictitious because no securities were purchased for the plaintiffs.  The plaintiffs further allege that they received false monthly statements of their holdings detailing the purported value.

The Southern District of Florida in Rosen v. J.M. Auto, Inc., 2009 WL 1033816 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 17, 2009), confirmed that, while discovery aimed at the identity of potential class members is barred prior to class certification, it is available once the class is certified. The court rejected the defendants’ argument that the discovery was untimely because the deadline for discovery had past, holding that plaintiffs’ current motion to compel related back to the original timely motion that had beed denied on the ground that a class was not yet certified. The court also confirmed that the plaintiff must bear the costs expended in compiling the list of potential class members.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit revived a class action lawsuit accusing Arco, Chevron, and other refiners of conspiring to fix gasoline prices in the mid-1990s.  The plaintiffs contend that the defendants violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by limiting the supply of gasoline to raise prices and keep them high. 

 

The Hartford and other insurers have been sued in a class action suit over the “dumping” of cheap Chinese food in the U.S. market.  The plaintiffs allege that the defendants negligently issued hundreds of customs surety bonds to thinly capitalized and inexperienced importers and refused to pay out on the bonds.  The bonds guaranteed the payment of any dumping duties that the government determined were owed by U.S. importers of Chinese goods.  The plaintiffs seek nearly one billion dollars in damages. 

Today, the Eleventh Circuit released a strongly worded opinion reversing an order certifying class claims for unpaid wages and unjust enrichment. In finding that the district court abused its discretion in just about every aspect of its order, the Court in Vega v. T-Mobile, USA, Inc., No. 07-13864 (11th Cir. Apr. 7, 2009), exhaustively examined each element of Rule 23(a) and (b)(3).

Applying Delaware law, the Southern District of Florida in Caban v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., 2009 WL 890392 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 23, 2009), ruled that the class action waiver at issue was unconscionable because it effectively precluded individual suits where a single plainitiff's recovery would be minimal. The court did, however, uphold the mandatory arbitration provision and sent the case to arbitration to be determined on a class-wide basis.

A federal judge approved class action status for royalty owners with interests in 290 natural gas wells in the Oklahoma pan handle and southwestern Kansas.  The suit was filed against Fort Worth based XTO Energy.  The royalty owners allege that XTO underpaid them by 15 to 20 percent by selling gas to a wholly owned company subsidiary at below market prices.  The gas was later allegedly sold to an unaffiliated company at a higher price.

 

A class action suit was filed by 150 families and businesses against Exxon Mobil Corporation.  The plaintiffs contend that they were contaminated by the gasoline additive MTBE.  The plaintiffs are seeking more than $530 million dollars in individual damages and billions more in restoration damages.