Just last week, video game giant (and two-time Worst Company In America winner) EA agreed to settle a lawsuit with student-athletes whose likenesses it had used in NCAA sports video games without their permission. Today, lawyers representing the students announced that they’ve also reached a settlement agreement with the NCAA. Between the two cases, students who were eligibly for up to $951 each in compensation are now eligible for… roughly $1000 in compensation. [More]
lawsuits
NCAA Settles With Student Athletes For A Decade Of Using Their Likenesses In Video Games Without Permission
By 6.9.14
Hershey Sues Edible Marijuana Maker Over Punny Product Names
By 6.9.14
We can’t imagine anyone with even the most basic grasp of the English language would confuse Hershey’s Almond Joy with “Ganja Joy,” an edible marijuana product. Nor do we think anyone will mistakenly buy a “Dabby Patty” thinking it’s a York peppermint patty. But we don’t work for the Hershey legal department, which has sued a Colorado company over punny pot product names that the chocolate goliath believes are too close to its trademarked brands. [More]
Bank Of America May Pay At Least Another $12 Billion For Mortgage-Related Hijinks
By 6.6.14
Bank of America has already agreed to mortgage meltdown-related settlements totaling more than $50 billion, so what’s another dozen or so billion dollars heaped on top of that pile? That’s the latest figure being thrown about in the seemingly never-ending series of complaints and settlements tied to the bank’s bad behavior in the home loan business. [More]
Woman Uses Heat Packs For Pain Relief, Burns 4 Holes In Breasts, Sues
By 6.5.14
When you need to relieve pain after a surgery and can’t walk around tethered to a heating pad all day, a small portable handwarmer is a suitable substitute…isn’t it? One woman thought so. According to court documents, she nestled them between her shirt and skin after reconstructive breast surgery. From the mention of “court documents,” you can probably guess how this ended. [More]
GSK To Pay $105 Million To Settle Advair, Paxil, Wellbutrin Disputes
By 6.4.14
Drug biggie GlaxoSmithKline has been slapped with another huge settlement for its questionable marketing tactics. This time, the pharma company has agreed to pay $105 million to resolve claims made by attorneys general from 45 states regarding the selling of asthma drug Advair and antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin. [More]
This Is One Of The Scammiest Payday Loans We’ve Ever Seen
By 6.4.14
Many payday loans have confusing terms and questionable fees that end up costing the borrower a lot more than they’d planned on when they took out the short-term loan. But it’s mind-boggling how one predatory lender managed to squeeze money from borrowers through an automatic opt-in renewal program that turns a $300 loan into $975 worth of payments in only a few months. [More]
Franchisees Will Go To Court To Stop Seattle’s $15/Hr Minimum Wage
By 6.3.14
Yesterday, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved a plan that will raise the minimum wage for workers to $15/hour over the next three-to-seven years. But business-owners who run franchise operations in the city say they are being unfairly targeted, and it looks like this issue may end up in a courtroom. [More]
Customer Sues Burger King & Military Over Needle-licious Triple Stacker
By 6.3.14
Back in 2010, an Army sergeant in Hawaii was chowing down on food bought from an on-base Burger King when he claims he chomped into some needles that were definitely not on the nutritional info for the sandwich. Now, after years of negotiating a settlement have proved fruitless, he’s suing both the fast food chain and the Army and Air Force Exchange that sold him the burger. [More]
EA To Pay College Athletes Up To $951 Each For Stealing Their Likenesses
By 6.2.14
What are you worth? Or rather, how much would you want to be paid to have your likeness used in a wildly popular and profitable sports video game? According to video game giant (and two-time Worst Company In America winner) Electronic Arts, the price tag for a college athlete’s face is just shy of one thousand bucks. [More]
You Can Make Your Own Aereo At Home, But Is It Worth It?
By 5.31.14
While cord-cutters around the country wait impatiently for the Supreme Court to make up its mind about the legality of Aereo — the subscription service that collects local over-the-air broadcast TV feeds and streams them to paying users over the Internet — we’ve been looking into what it would take to replicate something close to Aereo that couldn’t be shut down by SCOTUS. [More]
L.A. Sues JPMorgan Chase For Pushing Minorities Into Cruddy Mortgages
By 5.30.14
After filing similar suits against Well Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America, the city of Los Angeles is now going after JPMorgan Chase for allegedly pushing minority loan applicants into riskier and less-affordable mortgages than they were eligible for. [More]
Federal Appeals Court Tells Porn Copyright Trolls To Just Stop It Already
By 5.28.14
While you may — and probably do — hate your cable and Internet provider, a number of these companies have been doing one thing right over the last few years, by refusing to hand over user information to copyright troll lawyers looking to extort money out of people for allegedly sharing porn over the Internet. Yesterday, a federal appeals court handed down a ruling that could send a number of these trolls back under the bridges whence they came. [More]
Hotel Files $74,500 Defamation Suit Against Anonymous TripAdvisor Reviewer
By 5.22.14
The relative anonymity of online review sites makes it tempting to vent one’s anger toward a company in an over-the-top way, but does the use of a screen name prevent you from being held liable for making knowingly false claims? One hotel in Oregon says no, and is suing an unknown TripAdvisor reviewer to prove that point. [More]
KlearGear Defends $3,500 Non-Disparagement Fee, Says Court Ruling Doesn’t Count
By 5.20.14
Last week, a federal court in Utah issued a default judgment in favor of consumers who had been slapped with a $3,500 “non-disparagement fee” from e-tailer KlearGear.com because they wrote something negative about a failed transaction online. The company failed to show up to court to defend itself, but now claims it will fight that judgment because mail about the case was sent to the wrong address. [More]
Georgia City Sued Over Law Requiring Prescription To Buy Sex Toys
By 5.19.14
A man and woman in Georgia have filed a lawsuit against the city of Sandy Springs, GA, attempting to challenge a city ordinance that requires a consumer get a prescription from a doctor in order to purchase sex toys. [More]
Former iPhone User Suing Apple Over Unreceived Texts After Switching To Android
By 5.16.14
If you wouldn’t mind casting your mind back to Wednesday, we learned that many former iPhone users who’d made the switch to an Android phone have been having problems receiving text messages from iPhones, if they got them at all. And now one consumer is taking that seemingly unaddressed issue all the way to a lawsuit seeking class-action status. [More]
Court Rules Company Can’t Collect $3,500 “Non-Disparagement” Fee For Negative Online Review
By 5.15.14
For months, we’ve been telling you about KlearGear.com, the online retailer that was trying to collect a $3,500 fee from unsatisfied former customers over a negative review because of a “Non-Disparagement Clause” inserted into the site’s Terms of Sale after the customers made the purchase. The customers have been trying to fight the ridiculous anti-consumer fee (which shouldn’t apply to them anyway, as they never agreed to it at the time of purchase), and finally sued the company after having their credit tainted by a bogus debt. Now a federal court has sided with the couple and tossed out the $3,500 fee. [More]
Blue Buffalo Files Lawsuit Accusing Nestle Purina Of Propagating A “Smear Campaign”
By 5.14.14
We’re not going to claim that Consumerist is psychic, but last week we did predict that a cat fight was on the horizon between Blue Buffalo and Nestle Purina. Now, hot off the heels of Purina’s lawsuit alleging Blue Buffalo lies about the ingredients in its dog food, the natural dog food manufacturer has responded in kind with a lawsuit of its own. [More]
