Settlement - Part 27

Week Adjourned: 5.11.12 – Overtime Pay, Smoking Dishwasher, Ormat

A wrap up of the week’s top class action lawsuits and settlements for the week ending May 11, 2012. Top stories include unpaid overtime, smoking dishwashers and Ormat green energy.

Top Class Actions

Holy Catfish Batman!—what’s that smoking thing in the kitchen? A defective dishwasher, perhaps? We’ll find out, as a defective products class action lawsuit has been filed against Whirlpool, the manufacturer of Kitchenaid, Sears Kenmore, Maytag and Whirlpool dishwashers, alleging that certain models of dishwashers have a design flaw that can cause the control circuit board to fail. Greg Adams, who filed the defective dishwasher lawsuit, alleges this happened to him.

Adams claims that on December 8, 2011, he started his dishwasher only to smell burning plastic and see smoke coming from his dishwasher, sometime shortly afterward. To stop the dishwasher, he tried to pull on the door handle, but said he burned his hand on the front panel, which had become extremely hot. In the end, Adams was forced to shut the power off, to prevent further catastrophe, and protect his family. (You know this puts a whole new spin on the benefits of take out.)

According to NBCnews.com, research suggests more than 600 people across the country have come forward on kitchenaid.com. Their products were manufactured by whirlpool, which produces Kitchenaid, Sears Kenmore, Maytag and Whirlpool dishwashers. So why no recall? Well, a recall is one of the things the lawsuit seeks to achieve. Why is this so hard?

Unpaid, unhappy and unafraid… drug sales reps from Medimmune Biologics filed an employment class action lawsuit this week, against the drug company alleging unpaid overtime wage and hour violations. Sound familiar? Novo Nordisk, and Merck are also facing unpaid overtime suits by their sales reps. An industry-wide practice perhaps? Possibly. That is the $65 million question—and hinges on the definitions of ‘exempt’ and ‘non-exempt’.

According to the Medimmune wage and hour class action lawsuit, Medimmune Biologics violated California overtime laws by failing to pay drug sales representatives for overtime hours worked. Under California law, companies are required to pay all non-exempt employees overtime compensation whenever the employees work more than eight hours in a day or forty hours in a week.

The primary requirement to satisfy the outside salesperson exemption and thus not pay overtime under California law and the Fair Labor Standards Act is that the sales representatives are actually making sales. In the Medimmune Biologics overtime class action lawsuit, the drug sales representatives allege that they were not actually involved in making sales but rather promoting prescription drugs to physicians, doctors and other specialists. At most, the physicians the sales representatives promote the drugs to can agree to prescribe the medicine to patients as needed, but cannot actually buy the prescription medicine from the sales representatives directly.

Notably, all the pharma sales rep unpaid overtime class action lawsuits allege that the pharmaceutical sales representatives should be paid overtime compensation for working more than eight hour days under the California Labor Code and/or forty hour weeks under the Fair Labor Standards Act based on the contention that the drug sales representatives do not qualify for the outside salesperson exemption because they are not actually making sales. Incidentally, sales reps who filed unpaid overtime class actions against Schering Plough won.

Top Settlements

Green Energy Co. about to Hand Over Some Green? We have a potential settlement in the Ormat Technologies securities class action this week.

So here’s the not-so-skinny skinny:

To anyone who purchased or otherwise acquired Ormat Technologies Inc securities between May 7 2008 and February 24, 2010, inclusive, who incurred damages (the “class”):

You are hereby notified that this Class Action is pending and that a Settlement of it for Three Million One Hundred Thousand Dollars ($3,100,000) has been proposed. A hearing will be held on October 1, 2012, to determine: (i) whether the Settlement and Plan of Allocation should be approved by the Court as fair, reasonable, adequate, and in the best interests of the Class; (ii) whether Co-Lead Counsel’s application for an award of attorneys’ fees and the reimbursement of expenses should be approved; (iii) whether the Court should grant Lead Plaintiffs reimbursement of their reasonable costs and expenses (including lost wages) directly related to their representation of the Class; and (iv) whether the Court should approve the release of Released Claims against any and all Released Persons and dismiss the Litigation with prejudice.

IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE CLASS DESCRIBED ABOVE, YOUR RIGHTS WILL BE AFFECTED AND YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO SHARE IN THE SETTLEMENT FUND.

To participate in the Settlement, you must submit a Proof of Claim no later than September 24, 2012. As more fully described in the Notice, the deadline for submitting objections to the Settlement and requests for exclusions from the Class is September 10, 2012. Further information may be obtained by visiting gcginc.com/cases/ormat.

Got that?

Good. See you at the bar. And—Happy Mother’s Day!

Week Adjourned: 5.4.12 – iTunes, Asbestos, Yaz Birth Control

Top Class Action Lawsuits and Settlements for the week ending May 4, 2012. Top stories include iTunes Class Action, Asbestos Mesothelioma lawsuit settlement and Yaz settlements.

Top Class Actions

“Whataya Want from Me”—how about a refund! Is Apple taking a bite out of you? Robert Herskowitz thinks they might be. He filed a federal consumer fraud class action lawsuit against Apple this week, alleging iTunes double bills for purchases from its e-Stores and refuses to issue refunds to customers who are affected. Nice.

In his iTunes lawsuit, Herskowitz claims he bought a single song from the iTunes store for $1.29, for which Apple charged him twice. According to the lawsuit, when he brought the error to Apple’s attention, he says, the company responded: “Your request for ‘Whataya Want from Me’ was carefully considered; however, according to the iTunes Store Terms of Sale, all purchases made on the iTunes store are ineligible for refund. This policy matches Apple’s refund policies and provides protection for copyrighted materials.”

Herskowitz says the agreement governing use of Apples’ e-Stores “says no such thing.” He claims the policy has “resulted in substantial numbers of Apple customers throughout the country having been double billed by Apple.” Instead, the lawsuit claims that Apple’s refund policy, in the Terms and Conditions to which every customer must agree to make purchases on Apple’s e-stores, states that Apple does not provide refunds in the event of a price reduction or promotional offering. Accordingly, by its own terms, “Apple’s ‘no refund’ policy is limited to ‘the event of a price reduction or promotional offering.'”

The complaint adds: “Under the agreement, as with any consumer transaction, Apple may bill customers only once for each product or service that is purchased. With troubling regularity, however, Apple has ‘double billed’ customers for purchases made through the Apple Stores. In those cases, when a customer purchases a song, movie or book, Apple bills that customer twice for the same download. Apple, however, has effectuated a policy and practice of refusing to refund the extra charge to customers whom it has overbilled.” Therefore, the lawsuit alleges, Apple violates its own terms of agreement as well as California state and common laws.

Furthermore, Herskowitz claims that Apple follows the same illegal policy at its App store, iBookstore and he Mac App store. Herskowitz is seeking damages of more than $5 million for a national class.

Thank goodness for people who check their bills and read the fine print!

Top Settlements

“Highly Reprehensible” indeed. And it’s about time somebody came out and said it. This week, a California Appeals Court judge ruled that a $4.5 million punitive damages award in an asbestos mesothelioma lawsuit will be allowed to stand—that it is not excessive, and that the conduct of ArvinMeritor, the defendant in the asbestos lawsuit, and successor of brake shoe manufacturer Rockwell, was “highly reprehensible.”

“By the 1960s, ArvinMeritor knew that workers exposed to asbestos dust were at risk of developing asbestos-related diseases,” the judge wrote. “Indeed, in 1973 and again in 1975, it wrote letters to (Pneumo Abex) and other manufacturers complaining about the presence of asbestos dust in the brake linings it was receiving from them. Nonetheless, ArvinMeritor did not place any warnings on its products until the early 1980s, and continued to market asbestos-containing brakes until its inventory of them was exhausted sometime in the early 1990s.”

The justice noted that ArvinMeritor did not include a specific reference to cancer on its products until 1987. Gordon Bankhead, who filed the ArvinMeritor asbestos lawsuit, had worked at automotive maintenance facilities from 1965-1999. He died of mesothelioma in 2009.

A jury found ArvinMeritor 15 percent at fault for Bankhead’s death and suffering, putting it on the hook for $375,000 of a $2.5 million noneconomic damages award. The company was joint and severally liable for all of the $1.47 million in compensatory damages. A separate trial resulted in the $4.5 million punitive damages award.

Bayer AG, the manufacturer of Yaz/Yasmin birth control pills, has announced that it has settled 651 US Yasmin blood clot lawsuits for a total, so far, of $142 million. This makes the average settlement about $218,000 a case.

The lawsuits allege that Yasmin/Yas oral contraceptives cause blood clots in the women taking the pills, and in some cases they have proved fatal. The lawsuits also allege that the blood clots can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

According to Bloomberg News, on April 10, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered Bayer and other makers of birth control pills to strengthen blood-clot warnings on their products. Consequently, oral contraceptives that contain a synthetic hormone called drospirenone will have warnings on the labels stating that research shows there may be triple the risk for clots with pills such as Yasmin/Yaz. These warnings are also based on an FDA examination of data on more than 835,000 women who took oral contraceptives containing drospirenone, including Yasmin/Yaz.

And on that note—it’s time to adjourn. Happy Friday everyone…

Week Adjourned: 4.27.12 – Bumble Bee Tuna, Vita Coco, Citizens Bank

The weekly wrap on top class action lawsuits and settlements, for the week ending April 27, 2012. Top stories on Bumble Bee Tuna, Vita Coco and Citizens Bank.

Top Class Actions

Bumble Bee Got Stung This Week—with a consumer fraud class action. Yes, it’s true, I’m afraid. The worker bee of tinned seafood (I have never understood what a bumble bee is doing on a tin of tuna) is facing allegations that it repeatedly violated California and federal laws that require companies to use truthful, accurate information on their packaged food labels. (Shame, shame.)

At specific issue in the Bumble Bee lawsuit are the health claims made by Bumble Bee Foods pertaining to its tinned seafood products.

The alleged violations include failing to disclose that Omega-3 has no established Daily Value under FDA regulations, and a failure to properly disclose the high levels of fat, saturated fat and cholesterol in Bumble Bee food products on the packaging and labeling.

The Bumble Bee class action lawsuit states “To appeal to consumer preferences, Bumble Bee has repeatedly made unlawful nutrient claims on products containing disqualifying levels of fat, sodium and cholesterol. These nutrient content claims were unlawful because they failed to include disclosure statements required by law that are designed to inform consumers of the inherently unhealthy nature of those products. ”

The lawsuit states, by way of example, “Tuna Salad Original with Crackers Kit” has 18g of fat per labeled serving, but does not bear a statement that fat exceeding the specified level is present.

The Bumble Bee Foods lawsuit is a nationwide class seeking to represent consumers who purchased Bumble Bee products labeled “Rich in Natural Omega-3” or “Excellent Source Omega-3” within the last 4 years. The California-based law firm of Pratt & Associates is representing the plaintiffs in this class action.

Top Settlements

Something a Little Loco ‘Bout Vita Coco…While we’re on the subject of consumer fraud—a preliminary settlement has been reached in the consumer fraud class action lawsuit against All Market Inc. d/b/a Vita Coco. You must remember this—(a kiss is just a—no—wrong song sheet)—it’s the miracle vitamin water. After all, it does everything including taking the garbage out.

If you purchased Vita Coco Products between August 10, 2007 and the present you may be entitled to a payment from a class action settlement.

Under the terms of the settlement, Vita Coco agreed to set aside $1 million (the “Cash Settlement Fund”), which will provide for payments to Settlement Class Members who timely file claims of up to a maximum of $25.00 with Proof of Purchase (as defined in the Stipulation) and $6.00 without Proof of Purchase. Vita Coco has agreed to provide $1 million current retail value in product vouchers, which can be redeemed by Settlement Class Members who timely file claims in lieu of cash up to a maximum of $36.00 with Proof of Purchase or $8.00 without Proof of Purchase.

There are other conditions the company has agreed to as part of the Vita Coco settlement, which you can find here along with your options as a class member- e.g., do you want to remain in the settlement class, or would you like to be excluded…where do you obtain forms, those kinds of things.

This settlement is only preliminary. The Court will hold a hearing on August 22, 2012 to consider whether to grant final approval of the settlement and whether to grant Class Counsel’s (as defined in the Stipulation) request for attorneys’ fees, reimbursement of expenses and incentive awards for class representatives.

Good Citizens They Weren’t but…It’s Payback Time! Citizens Bank has agreed to pay $137.5 million (Cha Ching!) to settle a class action lawsuit which accused the bank of manipulating its customers’ debit card and ATM transactions in order to generate excess overdraft fee revenues for the bank.

The lawsuit is part of multidistrict litigation involving more than 30 different banks entitled In re Checking Account Overdraft Litigation, case number 09-cv-02036, is pending before U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King in Miami. Citizens Bank is part of Citizens Financial Group which, through RBS Citizens, N.A. and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, operates more than 1,500 retail banking branches throughout the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and the Mid-West.

The Citizens Bank lawsuit claims that the bank employed software programs designed to extract the greatest possible number of overdraft fees from its customers. According to the lawsuit, Citizens Bank re-sequenced its customers’ debit card and ATM transactions by posting them in highest-to-lowest dollar amount, rather than in the actual order in which the transactions were initiated by the customers and authorized by the bank. According to the lawsuit, this internal bookkeeping practice resulted in Citizens’ customers being charged substantially more in overdraft fees than if their debit card and ATM transactions had been posted in the order in which they were authorized by the bank.

I wonder if that settlement amount includes interest?

And on that note—happy weekend. Where’s the gin got to…

Week Adjourned: 4.13.12 (Muscle Milk, Risperdal, GameStop)

A weekly wrap up of the top class action lawsuits and class action settlements for the week of April 13, 2012; top stories this week: Muscle Milk, Risperdal and GameStop

Top Class Actions

This Week’s Mantra—Cav-e-at Emp-tor…Cav-e-at Emp-tor! Throw that right in there with ‘om shanti shanti shanti om’ at your next yoga class and see what happens…

This week, a consumer fraud class action against Cytosport got greenlit by a judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Bottom line, the company is accused of engaging in false advertising of its popular Muscle Milk line of products. (I’d be wary of a product with that name. What does it mean?)

According to the Muscle Milk class action lawsuit, to increase sales figures, Cytosport intentionally misrepresents the purported health benefits of Muscle Milk, and actively draws consumer attention away from the significant amount of saturated fats in the products.

The lawsuit alleges that Cytosport profits significantly from its deceptive marketing of Muscle Milk (well, why else would they do it?) because the company’s depiction of the products as “healthy” plays into consumers’ increasing interest in health-conscious foods.

In its decision, the Court explained that a “reasonable consumer would be likely to believe that the drink contains unsaturated, not saturated fats. The drink container also states that it is a ‘nutritional shake.’ This representation … contributes to a sufficient claim of deceptive product labeling … the injury to the consumer class as a whole could be substantial, even if the injury to individual consumers is minimal. No benefit is served by false and misleading advertising.” Well, that’s not entirely true —the company has benefited, allegedly.

Hey, maybe Lay’s Potato Chips and Muscle Milk can team up for some co-op ads, eh? Mmmaybe not.

Top Settlements

Costliest Ad Campaign Ever? This settlement is one for the books, if it goes through. According to media reports out this week, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) may have to stump up a cool $1.25 billion in penance for deceptive marketing of its atypical antipsychotic Risperdal, in Arkansas. The Risperdal settlement, ordered by a judge in Arkansas, is one of the larger J&J may have to pay for deceptive marketing of the drug. But it’s worth noting that J$J will likely appeal.

According to a report by Bloomberg, it took jurors in state court in Little Rock, not more than three hours to deliver their verdict: J&J and its Janssen unit were guilty of taking part in “false or deceptive acts.”

These “acts” date back to 2003, when the company allegedly sent what’s known as “Dear Doctor” letter to no less than 6,000 doctors in the state, allegedly claiming Risperdal is safer than competing drugs used in the state. ”

FYI—Risperdal carries a warning stating that older adults with dementia who take antipsychotic medications may have an increased risk of death, stroke or mini-stroke during treatment.

The state of Arkansas is seeking more than $1.25 billion in penalties over the Risperdal marketing campaign, and a judge will decide later whether to fine J&J,” Bloomberg reports.

This is the third case in which states allege J&J hid the risks associated with Risperdal—and tricked Medicaid regulators into paying more than they should have for the medicine. And it is the third case in which a jury has found against the drug-maker. Juries in Louisiana and South Carolina have also found that J&J’s marketing of Risperdal violated consumer-protection laws. (Bloomberg)

GameStop GamePlaying Over. And one more time for good measure—yet another consumer fraud class action, this one a settlement against retailer GameStop, who stands accused of “deceptive and misleading practices” with its used game sales and paid downloadable content.

Filed two years ago, by James Collins of California, the GameStop lawsuit claims GameStop sells used copies of games that require users to purchase downloadable content for features, even though the packaging for those games advertise that content as free.

According to the lawsuit, several games include one-time-use codes for consumers to download free content, but they require users to purchase that same content if the code has been redeemed, as is the case for many used copies of games. “As a result of GameStop’s deceptive and misleading practices, consumers who purchase used games from GameStop unknowingly find that they must pay an additional fee to access the full game they thought they purchased,” the lawsuit states.

According to the terms of the settlement, for the next two years GameStop must post online warnings and in-store signs (in California, where the lawsuit was filed) next to used games to remind consumers that certain downloadable content may require an additional purchase.

Consumers in California who have purchased a qualifying used game and are enrolled in GameStop’s PowerUp Rewards Program may be able to recover the $15 they might have paid for downloadable content. Also, they could be eligible to receive a $10 check and a $5 coupon. Non-PowerUp Rewards members can receive a $5 check and a $10 coupon. FYI—this settlement only applies to California customers.

And on that happy note—that’s a wrap. I hear the ice-cubes calling my name…om caveat emptor caveat emptor om…

Week Adjourned: 2.24.12

The weekly wrap of top class action lawsuits and lawsuit settlements for the week ending February 24, 2012.

Top Class Actions

Hotels.com—too good to be true? Kaylen Silverberg thinks so. She filed a consumer fraud class action lawsuit this week against the online booking agency, alleging it does not back up its promise to refund money if hotel guests can find a better rate elsewhere online.

Instead, Silverberg’s lawsuit claims, Hotels.com sets an “arbitrary and undisclosed limit” on refunds.

Silverberg’s lawsuit states Hotels.com will not back up its promise: “‘after you book with Hotels.com, if you find a lower publicly available rate on line for the same dates, hotel, and room category, we will match the price and refund you the difference.'” Instead, the lawsuit states, “Hotels.com has an arbitrary and undisclosed policy to refund only a portion of the difference between its rate and other, lower rates. For example, in Silverberg’s case, Hotels.com stated that ‘we can only refund you $142,’ even though the price difference was substantially greater.”

Silverberg’s story, short version, is allegedly that she booked a room through Hotels.com for two nights in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA., for $355 per night, then found a $223 rate at HotelClub.com. A third website advertised an even lower rate, $213. Silverberg then asked Hotels.com to back up its guarantee but she was told by the company that they would refund her only $71 a night, which she calls “an arbitrary and undisclosed limit.”

The lawsuit seeks restitution and class damages for breach of contract and unjust enrichment—otherwise known as “business as usual.”

Top Settlements

Every so often a class action settlement comes along that results directly from very unfortunate circumstances. This is one such settlement. This week, Teva Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Propofol, announced it will settle 120 personal injury lawsuits arising from a hepatitis C outbreak in Southern Nevada. The amount of the Nevada Propofol settlement is a reported $285 million.

The Israeli-based generic drug maker was facing lawsuits brought by some 150 former patients of The Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada and its sister clinics, who contracted the disease after receiving propofol at the clinics. LAS reported on this in some detail at the time.

According to a report in the Las Vegas Review Journal, nine hepatitis C cases were found to be linked to the clinics which were run by Dr. Dipak Desai. Seven of the nine cases were genetically linked to the center. Health officials called another 106 cases “possibly linked.” According to health officials, more than 60,000 former clinic patients were potentially exposed to hepatitis C because of unsafe injection practices by nurse anesthetists at the clinics.

Teva lost the first three trials and was facing payments of nearly $800 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages. The fourth trial was under way when settlement talks began in earnest. The settlement leaves 15 lawsuits unresolved.

Antennagate may be drawing to a close…if a preliminary settlement reached in a defective products class-action lawsuit against Apple is approved. The lawsuit alleges underperformance of its iPhone 4 resulting from antenna problems. And oh brother did we ever hear about it! While the iPhone 4 settlement per class member is certainly not large, by anyone’s measure—the size of the class certainly is—25 million US residents no less, each of whom could receive $15 in cash or a bumper case provided by Apple under the terms of the settlement. So, don’t be quitting your day job just yet.

The class action combined 18 separate lawsuits, all of which allege Apple was “misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4—particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software.”

As part of the iPhone 4 settlement original purchasers will be sent emails before April 30, 2012 alerting them to the settlement. The claims period is then open for 120 days.

OK—And it’s off to the bar we go. See you there!

Week Adjourned: 11.4.11

Week Adjourned: the weekly wrap of class action lawsuits and settlements, November 4, 2011

Top Class Actions

Could this mean resolution for thalidomide victims?…New research suggests that thalidomide—a drug that caused thousands of horrific cases of deformities in children—caused far more deformities in the U.S. than were reported during the height of the pharmaceutical crisis of the early 1960s.

Invented by German drug company Grunenthal, thalidomide was widely used throughout Europe during the late 1950s and early 1960s, resulting in thousands of deaths and extreme, disfiguring birth defects when used by women during pregnancy. The drug was never approved in the United States, but the new lawsuit filed late October 2011 alleges that as many as 2.5 million doses of the drug were distributed by more than 1,200 doctors to more than 20,000 people, including pregnant women.

Newly discovered and translated documents reveal that Smith, Kline and French (SKF), now owned by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)conducted a trial of the drug in 1956 and 1957, but buried the evidence, allegedly resulting in a missed opportunity to save thousands of lives.

Instead, according to the filed lawsuit, brought on behalf of 13 men and women with severe birth defects, SKF concealed the results of its trial from the public, allowing another company, Richardson-Merrell, now owned by Sanofi-Aventis to move ahead with large-scale “clinical trials” that involved more than 20,000 people, including pregnant women.

The lawsuit also claims that conclusions made in the early 1960s about the types of birth defects caused by the thalidomide were incorrect.

According to legal counsel, researchers concluded that thalidomide causes bilateral birth defects, such as two missing or shortened arms or hearing loss in both ears. As a result, babies born with unilateral defects, such as one deformed limb, or hearing loss in only one ear were not deemed thalidomide victims, even when their mothers were given the drug while pregnant.

However, new research involving thalidomide as part of a treatment regimen in cancer patients show that many of the assumptions used in the 1960s are incorrect. The thalidomide lawsuit alleges that this new understanding of the drug means that many individuals who experienced unilateral defects may have been misdiagnosed when their doctors told them thalidomide could not have been the cause.

“Among other things we intend to show in court that thalidomide does not work through a neural mechanism as previously thought, but affects the vascular system,” a lawyer for the plaintiffs said.

The complaint claims that the defendants are either guilty of or liable for a civil conspiracy, failing to report and covering up evidence that thalidomide was harmful, especially when taken during the early stages of pregnancy. The lawsuit also says that the defendants were negligent in continuing to manufacture, test and distribute the drug.

Top Settlements

Motrin SJS Verdict. This is one for the books. Let’s hope it makes a difference. On October 3, 2011, a Los Angeles jury returned a record-setting verdict against Johnson & Johnson and their fully owned subsidiary McNeil Consumer Healthcare for $48.2 million—with pre-interest and cost of judgment it’s expected to reach $60 million. The lawsuit alleged that Motrin caused SJS/TENS or Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS), also known as Erythema Multiforme, Leyll’s Syndrome, and in its later stages, Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TEN). SJS/TEN is a serious and potentially life-threatening disease that causes large areas of the skin to become detached and lesions to develop in the mucous membranes.

The verdict was based on findings of malice towards the consumers of the over-the-counter drug Motrin, specifically for not putting a warning label on the product that could have spared Trejo’s and others’ health. This is believed to be the first verdict of its kind involving punitive damages associated with this over-the-counter temporary pain reliever.

At age 16, Christopher Trejo, who is now 22 years old, took some Motrin as directed on the label for less than one week, but contracted TEN. It caused a severe inside-out exfoliating reaction affecting all of his mucosal membranes, which is equivalent to second- and third-degree burns over 100% of his body. The TEN reaction also caused severe pulmonary damage, near-blindness, infertility, whole-body scarring and a hypoxic brain injury. Trejo’s abilities to see, hear, smell, taste and touch have been severely diminished.

After hearing the evidence, the jury found that the labeling on Motrin was inadequate and should have been changed years earlier to properly educate and alert consumers to the developing signs of severe reactions, which include skin reddening, rash and blisters. Early detection and treatment of these symptoms can prevent TEN or SJS.

Apple Playing the Same Old tune? Apple, Inc., has agreed to settle a consumer fraud class action lawsuit that could amount to over $50 million dollars in payouts—but before you get all excited know this “Apple has agreed to provide an iTunes® Store credit in the amount of $3.25 to all settlement class members who qualify and submit a valid claim form. ” That’s the skinny.

The lawsuit claimed that Apple advertised and sold gift cards which stated that if one purchased and used the gift card, all songs purchased at Apple’s online iTunes® Store would cost 99¢ per song. The lawsuit further claimed that in April, 2009, Apple raised the price of certain songs at the iTunes® store, yet refused to honor the promised 99¢ price when the gift cards were redeemed. In addition, the company continued to sell iTunes® gift cards with the phrase, “Songs are 99¢” printed on them.

Consumers who were overcharged for iTunes songs while using iTunes® 99¢ gift cards are now eligible to receive an iTunes® Store credit in the amount of $3.25 after completing the simple iTunes® class action lawsuit online claim form. Millions of e-mails are currently being sent to persons who may have used affected gift cards to purchase songs from the iTunes® Store.

You can find out how to make an Apple iTunes lawsuit claim here.

Ok—That’s enough for this week. See you at the bar—don’t forget your iPod.