Earlier this year, Home Depot charged an Oregon customer a $28 late fee for allegedly missing a payment on his store line of credit. The subsequent dispute over that fee resulted in more fees, a 100-point drop in the customer’s credit score and now a $250,000 lawsuit against the retailer. [More]
lawsuits
Appeals Court Says Google’s Book-Scanning Project Is Legal Fair Use
By 10.16.15
A federal appeals court has sided with Google in a lawsuit filed by the nation’s largest trade group for professional writers, ruling that the Internet giant’s large-scale book-scanning project is a legal fair use of these texts and not a violation of the authors’ copyright. [More]
7 Things We Learned About How Debt Collection Lawsuits Affect Minority Neighborhoods
By 10.9.15
While some debt collectors have resorted to questionable and sometimes illegal practices, there are also legal routes to debt collection — like lawsuits and wage garnishment — that can nonetheless have a destructive effect, particularly in low-income, minority neighborhoods. [More]
Beyoncé, Jay Z, Others Claim Retailer Is Selling Products Bearing Their Likenesses Without Permission
By 10.8.15
When you’re as famous as Beyoncé, Jay Z, Kanye West, Pharrell Williams or Rihanna, your face is literally your fortune — and fans are most definitely willing to pay to get a piece of their favorite artists. That’s why those musicians are jointly suing a Paris clothing company, alleging that it’s been peddling products using their likenesses without having the right to do so. [More]
CFPB To Consider Rules That Would Revoke Banks’ “License To Steal”
By 10.7.15
The lengthy, often complicated terms of use for more than half of all credit cards — and nearly half of all federally insured bank deposits — include clauses that force customers into arbitration, taking away their right to sue these companies in a court of law and usually blocking them from joining together in a class action. Critics argue that these forced-arbitration clauses allow banks and other businesses to break the law with impunity. Heeding the call of lawmakers and consumer advocates, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has decided to consider rules that would ban this practice among financial institutions. [More]
Court Overturns Conviction Of Landlord Who Threatened To Post Sex Tape On Facebook
By 10.6.15
If you go on Facebook and threaten to post a sex tape featuring a public official, is that a threat or is it free speech protected by the First Amendment? The highest court in Georgia has overturned the six-year prison sentence of a man who said he’d share raunchy footage of a court clerk, mostly because said sex tape didn’t exist. [More]
BP Must Pay $20.8 Billion In Finalized Settlement With Feds, Five States For 2010 Gulf Disaster
By 10.5.15
Three months after the Department of Justice and BP announced they had come to an agreement to put an end to the legal debacle related to the 2010 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil well in the Gulf of Mexico that left eleven people dead and released millions of gallons of oil into the water, the deal has been finalized for $20.8 billion — about $1.3 billion more than the oil company estimated in July. [More]
Supreme Court Shuts Down Attempt To Move Oakland A’s To San Jose
By 10.5.15
Professional sports teams relocate all the time — just ask the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, who moved moved to L.A. and then back home again in a little more than a decade (and who are among the lead prospects to fill the pro football void in L.A.). So it would seem no big deal for the Oakland A’s to only move about 50 miles away to San Jose, right? Not quite. [More]
Woman Claims Lucille Roberts Gym Accused Her Of “Trespassing” For Working Out In A Skirt
By 10.2.15
Should you be able to wear whatever you want when you exercise? A New York City woman says that employees of the Lucille Roberts gym chain were so upset about her insistence on wearing a skirt while working out that they harassed her and even threatened to call the cops on her. [More]
Verizon Tells Judge: Porn Copyright Troll Is Wasting Everyone’s Time With “Defective” Subpoenas
By 10.2.15
Porn producer Malibu Media, which has filed more than 4,000 copyright lawsuits since 2009 — several times more than any other company — is currently trying to compel Verizon to reveal the identities of Internet users Malibu believes are illegally sharing its movies. But lawyers for the telecom titan are telling the court they’ve had enough of Malibu’s “defective” and “unenforceable” subpoenas. [More]
How Drug Companies Use “Product Hopping” To Fight Off Affordable Generic Drugs
By 10.1.15 — Updated: 2.7.17
You’re probably used to the idea of your doctor prescribing you a brand-name drug and your pharmacist automatically substituting a lower-cost generic equivalent that saves you, the drugstore, and your insurer money. But there’s a practice in the industry known as “product hopping” that brand-name drug makers can use to repeatedly delay generic versions from reaching consumers. [More]
Microsoft And Google Decide To Kiss, Make Up And Drop All Those Pesky Patent Lawsuits
By 10.1.15
Giant technology companies — they’re just like us! Instead of continuing to duke it out over a slew of patent infringement claims in court, Microsoft and Google have decided that peace is the answer, and have announced they’re dropping all pending litigation against each other. [More]
Federal Appeals Court Nixes Plan To Pay College Football, Basketball Stars
By 9.30.15
A federal appeals court has ruled that colleges are violating antitrust laws by profiting from student-athletes’ names and likenesses while these same students are forbidden from receiving any money. However, the same appeals panel struck down the lower court’s plan that would have allowed NCAA member schools to pay certain athletes up to $5,000 a year in deferred compensation. [More]
Regulators Sue Weight-Loss Marketer Who Used Fines, Lawsuits To Stop Negative Consumer Reviews
By 9.28.15
Federal regulators on Monday continued their crackdown on deceptive, ineffective weight-loss products, this time by filing a lawsuit against a company that threatened to enforce a so-called “gag clause” by imposing fines and filing lawsuits to stop customers from posting negative reviews and testimonials for the products online. [More]
Court Okays $50M Comcast Settlement But Some Customers Won’t Even Get The $15 Bill Credit
By 9.25.15
Eleven months after Comcast reached a $50 million deal that would close the books on a class-action lawsuit originally filed back in 2003, the settlement has been approved by a federal court. However, because the window for filing a claim has already closed, a number of the affected 800,000 customers won’t get a bill credit; just two free months of The Movie Channel. [More]
Three On-Demand Food Delivery Services Hit With Lawsuits Over Worker Misclassification
By 9.24.15
GrubHub, DoorDash and Caviar can all deliver food to customers with a few taps and clicks on an app, and they all have something else in common — they’re each facing new lawsuits alleging that their delivery drivers are misclassified as independent contractors. [More]
Judge: Ranting Yelp Reviewer Must Pay Contractor $1,000
By 9.23.15
It’s one thing to go online and rant about a business that you’ve dealt with, exercising your right to free speech and warning other consumers away from dealing with that company. The problem, one woman in New York City learned, comes when you accuse the enterprise of actual crimes, using words like “scam” and “fraud,” and the company notices. [More]
Lindt Beats Haribo In Legal Battle Over Candy Bears
By 9.23.15
It might seem pretty obvious that chocolate candy shaped like a bear is quite different from a gummy candy bear, but now it’s official: a judge in German ruled that Lindt’s foil-wrapped, bear-shaped chocolate treats aren’t copying rival candy purveyor Haribo’s gummy bear mascot. [More]
