Did you receive any fun gadgets as holiday gifts? If so, it’s time to check over that user agreement most people usually ignore to see if you have signed away your legal rights, or if you still have a chance to protect your right to a day in court. [More]
lawsuits
Did You Get A Gadget For Christmas? It’s Time To Opt Out Of Mandatory Arbitration!
By 1.3.17 — Updated: 3.31.17
Lawsuit Claims Drunk Lyft Driver Caused Serious Car Crash
By 1.3.17
Having someone else drive when you’ve had a few too many alcoholic beverages is always important — but what if the person you hire to drive you is the one who’s drunk? Two Lyft passengers in California say their trip ended with a terrifying crash because their driver was intoxicated. [More]
Run-DMC Suing Online Retailers, Including Amazon and Walmart, For $50 Million
By 12.30.16
Run-DMC might have broken up 14 years ago, but the name and the musical legend live on in the world of licensed, endorsed merchandise. Unfortunately, according to a new lawsuit, the Run-DMC name also lives on in infringing merchandise being sold by major online stores. [More]
Parents Of Child Killed By Distracted Driver Sue Apple For Not Blocking FaceTime While Driving
By 12.29.16
On Christmas Eve 2014, a driver distracted by using FaceTime on his iPhone crashed into another vehicle on I-35 in Texas, killing the 5-year-old girl in the back seat. The child’s parents and her older sister — all also injured in the collision — are now suing Apple, alleging that the company was negligent in not deploying safeguards that would restrict the use of FaceTime while driving. [More]
Lawsuit Claims Chick-Fil-A Discriminates Against Job Applicants With Disabilities
By 12.28.16
An autistic man who was interested in working at an Illinois Chick-fil-A claims in a lawsuit against the fast food chain that he was dissuaded from applying for a job after the restaurant’s manager said people with disabilities wouldn’t do well there. [More]
Wells Fargo Customers: Bank’s Contract Can’t Be Used To Allow Illegal Activity
By 12.28.16
Even though Wells Fargo has admitted that bank employees opened millions of fraudulent, unauthorized accounts in customers’ names, the bank has avoided or delayed class-action lawsuits over this fake account fiasco by citing terms in customer contracts that prevent account-holders from bringing lawsuits against Wells. However, one group of customers is arguing that the bank can’t use these contracts to shield itself from being held liable for illegal activity. [More]
Private Eyes Spy On Apartments To Catch Illegal Airbnb Hotels
By 12.27.16
In cities where housing is in short supply like New York and San Francisco, permanent residents are understandably upset when their landlords boot them out to use their apartments as mini-hotels. To prove that this is happening, ousted tenants are turning to private detectives who monitor their former apartments as if they were cheating spouses. [More]
Comcast Unable To Shut Down Lawsuit Over “Deceptive” Service Protection Plans & Fees
By 12.27.16
In August, Washington state sued Comcast, alleging that the cable giant had deceived hundreds of thousands of customers in the state about an add-on service intended to cover the cost of service calls. Comcast later sought to have the case dismissed, calling it a “profound mischaracterization” of the company’s business practices, but the court recently allowed the matter to move forward over Comcast’s objections. [More]
Judge Says Amazon Must Hand Over Names Of Customers Eligible For WEN Hair Care Settlement
By 12.22.16
Which is more important to you: keeping your personal data private, or the knowledge that a product you purchased is involved in a settlement that may entitle you to compensation? According to a federal judge, the latter is more beneficial to consumers. [More]
IKEA To Pay $50M To Families Of 3 Toddlers Killed In Dresser Tip-Overs
By 12.22.16
Six months after IKEA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of more than 29 million topple-prone Malm dressers now linked to four deaths, the furniture maker has agreed to pay $50 million to three of the affected families. [More]
Faux Fish Company Ordered To Stop Using “Chickpea Of The Sea” Name
By 12.20.16
As more and more companies jump on the fake meat bandwagon, producing meatless burgers that bleed and now “vegan sushi” meant to mimic the experience of eating fish, it isn’t just consumers that are paying attention: established names in the meat industry are on the lookout for imitators, and ready to protect their trademarks. [More]
Labor Dept. Tries To Revive Overtime Rule Derided By Trump’s Pick For Labor Secretary
By 12.15.16
In November, with only days to go before a new federal overtime rule was set to kick in — adding an estimated 4 million American works to the list of those eligible to receive overtime pay — a federal court granted a nationwide injunction blocking the new rule from being enforced. Now Labor Secretary Thomas Perez is appealing that injunction, even though his successor under the incoming Trump administration will almost certainly drop that appeal once in office. [More]
20 States Accuse Teva, Mylan & Other Pharma Companies Of Price-Fixing
By 12.15.16
When the Justice Department announced it was bringing criminal charges against two former executives of a pharmaceuticals company, alleging a conspiracy to fix prices on generic drugs, we said that this was likely just the tip of the legal iceberg. Today, the industry ran smack into that iceberg — in the form of a lawsuit filed by twenty states against six different drug companies, including notables like Teva and Mylan. [More]
Customer Sues Over Citric Acid In “Preservative-Free” Lean Cuisine Pizza
By 12.14.16
“Preservative-free” is a food label that plenty of shoppers seek out, and it’s printed right on the front of Lean Cuisine’s boxes of frozen pizza. One customer claims, however, that this label isn’t accurate. Whether she’s right depends on whether citric acid — a chemical that serves different purposes in different kinds of food — is considered a “preservative.” [More]
Ashley Madison’s Penalty For Exposing Details On 36 Million Users? About $.04 Per Person
By 12.14.16
In 2015, a major data breach at AshleyMadison.com — the dating site targeted at cheaters — exposed information for some 36 million accounts. The company has now entered into a deal that settles federal and state charges that Ashley Madison: misled users about data security and failed to protect user information; charged users to delete profiles (but didn’t); and used fake profiles to lure in customers. While the settlement has a price tag of $8.75 million, Ashley Madison will actually pay significantly less than that. [More]
Speak Freely America: New Federal Law Outlaws Gag Clauses That Punish You For Negative Reviews
By and 12.14.16
A new federal law will be born today. If it is signed by President Obama, one of his final acts in office will be to enshrine into law one of the core principles on which Consumerist — now in its eleventh year — was founded: That honest consumers have the right to complain. [More]
Wells Fargo Fake Account Lawsuit On Hold While Bank Tries To Force Case Out Of Court
By 12.13.16
As we mentioned last week, Wells Fargo — the bank where employees opened millions of unauthorized accounts in customers’ names — has been trying to wriggle out of class action lawsuits involving the fake account fiasco by forcing each individual customer into private arbitration. This afternoon, the judge in one lawsuit put the case on hold until he decides whether or not Wells gets to play this “get out of jail free” card. [More]
“Security As An Afterthought:” 3 Frightening Privacy Claims From Former Uber Staffers
By 12.12.16
Even if you’re a fan of Uber’s service, it’s often difficult to not take issue with the company’s short history of: disregarding taxi regulations, having questionable screening procedures for drivers, taking a casual approach to customer privacy, and forbidding both its employees and users from bringing lawsuits. Now, several former Uber security staffers are pulling back the veil on what they see as problems at the hugely popular ridesharing service. [More]
