Tag Archives: Class Action

Salesforce Data Breach Suit Cites California Privacy Law

February 4, 2020. Daniel Stoller, Bloomberg Law – Salesforce.com Inc. and a children’s clothing company face data-breach allegations in a federal court lawsuit that is among the first to cite California’s landmark privacy law since it took effect Jan. 1. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/salesforce-data-breach-suit-cites-california-privacy-law

9-In-10 Big Banks Strip Customers Of Their Right To Jury Trial

by Chris Morran, Consumerist

Researchers at the Pew Charitable Trusts … looked at the customer contracts for checking accounts at 44 of the nation’s largest banks and found that 91% of them include jury trial waivers. Read More ›

From Credit Cards To Mail-Order Steaks: 87 Companies That Are Taking Away Your Right To Sue

by Chris Morran, Consumerist

Businessmanhave an ace under his sleeve while meet his client or partner

A recent study by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that even though most Americans have at least one financial product — checking accounts, credit cards, loans, investment accounts — that use forced arbitration clauses to strip the account-holder of their right to sue, very few of us know about these restrictions or understand what they mean. Read More ›

Judge Shreds Uber; Says Company Can’t Prove Riders Are Giving Up Right To Sue

by Chris Morran, Consumerist

With regard to the Uber app, [U.S. District Court Judge Ned] Rakoff notes that there is no requirement for the new user to even check off a box that they read the terms of service; one could easily finalize their registration without reading, or even knowing about, these terms — let alone the restrictive arbitration clause. Read More ›

Fitbit Must Face Lawsuit Over Sleep-Tracking Claims

by Chris Morran, Consumerist

Fitbits from Samsung Creative Commons feed

Fitbit also contended that the marketing claims are just “puffery,” meaning general statements of superiority that can’t be taken as false advertising. Yet the judge found this argument unconvincing. Read More ›

Former Corinthian College Students Sue To Have Private Loans Discharged

by Ashlee Kieler, Consumerist

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, against Turnstile Capital Management, LLC, Balboa Student Loan Trust, and University Accounting Service, LLC seeks to provide California students defrauded by the for-profit college chain with full debt relief. Read More ›

Uber Agrees To Settle DA Suits Over Safety Practices

by Jason Doiy, The Recorder

Uber Technologies Inc. will pay up to $25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the San Francisco and Los Angeles district attorneys’ offices over how it has touted safety measures. … Uber agreed to change the way it describes its driver checks and safety practices and to cooperate with the Division of Measurement Standards to certify that ride charges are accurate and fair. [The complaint claimed] the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company misled consumers by advertising the “safest rides on the road,” coupled with “industry leading background checks.” Read More ›

Wells Fargo To Pay $8.5 Million In Privacy Case, None To Victims

by Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle

[Penal Code sections 632 and 632.7] make it illegal to record phone conversations without the consent of all parties. Violators can be fined up to $2,500 per call or imprisoned in a county jail. … “This is very different from the kinds of settlements I have seen brought by private attorneys representing consumers” in class-action cases alleging violations of California’s eavesdropping law, said Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. “In those kinds of lawsuits, individual class members typically can receive hundreds or thousands of dollars if they submit a claim. This involves zero recovery by individual class members.” Read More ›

Lyft Drivers, If Employees, Owed Millions More – Court Documents

by Dan Levine and Heather Somerville, Reuters

Lyft car on city street

Drivers who worked for ride-hailing service Lyft in California during the past four years would have been entitled to an estimated $126 million in expense reimbursements had they been employees rather than contractors, court documents show. … The judge asked for the estimates as part of his oversight of a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by California drivers. … Lyft agreed to settle the class-action lawsuit in January. Under the proposed deal, Lyft would pay $12.25 million, with drivers receiving an average of $56 each after attorneys’ fees and other expenses, documents show. Read More ›

Uber Agrees To Settle Class-Action Suit Over Safety Claims

by Mike Isaac, New York TImes

Uber has agreed to pay $28.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that took issue with the company’s claims that its driver background checks were “industry leading.” The terms of the settlement, filed on Thursday in the United States District Court in the Northern District of California, require Uber to pay roughly 25 million riders across the United States … Uber passengers who used the service in the United States between Jan. 1, 2013, and Jan. 31, 2016, will be notified by email and have the option to accept a refund in the form of a rider credit or a charge back to their credit card on file. Read More ›

Bill Aims To Restore Consumers’ Legal Rights Stripped Away By Supreme Court Rulings

by Chris Morran, Consumerist

Sen. Patrick Leahy from Vermont and Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota announced the Restoring Statutory Rights Act. … It would create an exception in the Arbitration Act for disputes involving individuals and small businesses. The only way individuals would enter into arbitration is if they agreed to do so after the dispute has been filed. That’s very different from the current process, which automatically shunts all customer disputes into binding arbitration. Read More ›

Supreme Court Rejects Class-Action Suit Against DirecTV

by Robert Barnes, Washington Post

“These decisions have predictably resulted in the deprivation of consumers’ rights to seek redress for losses, and turning the coin, they have insulated powerful economic interests from liability for violations of consumer protection laws,” wrote [dissenting Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. … “It has become routine, in a large part due to this court’s decisions, for powerful economic enterprises to write into their form contracts with consumers and employees no class-action arbitration clauses … further degrading the rights of consumers and further insulating already powerful economic entities.” Read More ›

Uber Seeks To Head Off Lawsuits With New Binding Driver Agreement

by Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle

Uber logo

One East Bay driver, who asked not to be identified because he fears retaliation from Uber, said he had not immediately understood that he could opt out of the [binding arbitration] provision. “That wasn’t obvious to me,” said that driver, who graduated from UC Berkeley and worked in a professional job for many years. … Retaliation by Uber against drivers for opting out of the arbitration clause or for pursuing First Amendment rights to criticize the company would be illegal, but numerous drivers commenting on social media seemed unaware of this. Read More ›

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