Transvaginal Mesh

Week Adjourned: 3.10.17 – Nissan, Mesh Implants, Home Depot

Top Class Action Lawsuits

Nissan is listening…maybe literally & maybe too much. The automaker got slapped with a proposed privacy class action lawsuit this week, over allegations the company recorded calls between themselves and customers to or from customers’ cell phone without consent. Nice.

Filed in California state court by Dave Vaccaro, the complaint states that this is regular practice for Nissan, which records both inbound and outbound calls that are placed in California, without first obtaining permission or informing customers, in violation of the California Penal Code.

“Defendant concealed the fact that it was recording the aforementioned phone calls to create the false impression in the minds of plaintiff and those similarly situated without their knowledge or consent that they were not being recorded,” the complaint states. “At the outset of the phone calls there was no warning that the phone calls were, or even may, be recorded. Such warnings are ubiquitous today.”

According to the Nissan lawsuit, Vaccaro and Nissan were in contact by cell phone several times during February but at no time was he aware the automaker was recording the conversations, as they had not asked his permission to do so. Further, the complaint alleges that Nissan failed to provide an automated advisory at the beginning of the calls explaining that they could be monitored or recorded, nor did the company’s representatives give him warning. It’s enough to make you go back to writing letters…

Vaccaro states that he remained unaware of the recording until the end of one of the later calls. It was then that a Nissan agent informed him that Nissan’s calls, including collection and sales calls are recorded. Vaccaro claims that as he had no way of knowing the calls were being recorded until August and that recording calls is part of Nissan’s policy, he is justified in not bringing the claim earlier.

The plaintiff seeks to represent a class of all people in California who, in the last year, had inbound or outbound conversations on their cellphones recorded by Nissan without their permission. Although he doesn’t know how many members of the class there are, plaintiff believes the number to be in the tens of thousands, if not more, according to the complaint.

The complaint brings one count for invasion of privacy in violation of the California Penal Code, seeking the greater of statutory damages of $5,000 per violation or three times the actual damage per violation, as well as $2,500 per violation, exemplary or punitive damages, costs and prejudgment interest.

Vaccaro also seeks injunctive relief in the form of an order requiring Nissan to disgorge its ill-gotten gains and provide the class with full restitution, plus an injunction barring the company from recording calls with California residents without permission.

The case is Dave Vaccaro v. Nissan North America Inc., case number BC653385, in the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles.

Top Settlements

Mesh Mess. A good ending for a bad story… A proposed $12.5 million settlement has been approved by a California federal judge, resolving litigation involving Caldera Medical’s transvaginal mesh (TVM) implant. Thousands of insurance claims were filed against Caldera alleging the TVM caused injuries to some 2,700 women.

According to the terms of the Caldera mesh settlement, in which class members are not able to opt-out, Federal Insurance will distribute $10.58 million among 2,710 class member claimants. Further, it will pay class counsel attorneys’ fees and costs. In exchange, the claimants release Caldera and Federal Insurance from all future claims, according to court documents.

The Caldera TVM implant was used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence in women. According to the suits, which were consolidated in California state court, Caldera knew or should have known that the TVM devices it manufactured and sold were hazardous and dangerous to people’s health. The claims were filed against Caldera which were then turned into insurance claims with Federal Insurance.

According to court documents, Federal Insurance had already paid out more than $6.3 million in settlements, notwithstanding the thousands of additional claims pending. Federal Insurance asked the court to certify a class of claimants and enjoin the claimants from pursuing further suits affecting the insurance policy.

The state litigation is In Re. Transvaginal Mesh Litigation, case number JCCP 4733, in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles.

Home Depot bringing it home—$25 million that is—to the banks. A settlement has been reached between Home Depot and financial institutions who brought a class action against the home hardware retailer alleging it was negligent in preventing a massive data breach in 2014.

The putative class action alleged that the data breach compromised 56 million credit and debit card numbers of Home Depot customers.

According to court documents, if approved, the Home Depot data breach settlement would require Home Depot to pay $25 million into a non-revisionary fund to be distributed to financial institutions that have not already released their claims against the retailer for losses stemming from the catastrophic data breach.

For financial institutions with a valid claim, a fixed payment estimated to be $2 per compromised card could be forthcoming, without the institutions having to submit documentation of their losses and regardless of whether any compensation already has been received from another source, according to the agreement.

Class members that submit proof of losses also are eligible for a supplemental award of up to 60 percent of their documented, uncompensated losses from the data breach, documents state.

The retailer also has agreed to pay up to $2.225 million to institutions whose claims were released by a sponsor, such as a card processor, in connection with the card brand recovery program provided by MasterCard.

The MDL is In Re: The Home Depot Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, case number 1:14-md-02583, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Ok – That’s a wrap for this week. See you at the bar!

Week Adjourned: 2.12.16 – Nissan, Target, TVM

Top Class Action Lawsuits

Heads Up Owners of 2011-2012 Nissan Frontier Trucks… Nissan North America got hit with a defective automotive class action lawsuit this week over claims its side air bags are, well, just a little too enthusiastic. Plain English—the air bags deploy unnecessarily.

Filed by plaintiff Bobette Brantley, the Nissan airbag lawsuit asserts that the automaker designed side air bags in 2011-2012 Nissan Frontier trucks to inflate in rollover and near rollover conditions. However, it failed to warn consumers about how sensitive the air bags and seatbelt pretensioner igniters actually are. The seatbelt pretensioner igniters tighten any slack in seatbelts during an accident.

The lawsuit states that a defect in the class vehicles causes the side curtain air bags to deploy simultaneously and unnecessarily while also causing the seat belt pretensioner igniter to deploy. Once this happens, the vehicles are no longer safe to drive and consumers must pay thousands of dollars to have extensive repair work done. Adding insult to injury, Brantley also claims that Nissan refuses to pay for the resulting repairs.

According to the lawsuit, “The deployment of the side curtain air bags and the seatbelt pretensioner igniters is extremely distracting to drivers of class vehicles. The distraction is of such a magnitude that drivers of class vehicles are at risk of losing control of class vehicles, greatly increasing the possibility of a traffic accident, and injury.”

In the suit, Brantley states that while she was driving her vehicle in December, in a way that she said Nissan represented the vehicle can be driven, the side curtain air bags suddenly and unexpectedly deployed, causing her to nearly lose control of the vehicle. As a result, she spent thousands of dollars to restore her Frontier to a safe, driveable condition.

Brantley asserts that Nissan was aware of the alleged defect as a result of consumer complaints, internal testing and dealership repair records. However, she claims, the automaker failed to disclose the defect and, in fact, actively concealed it from consumers.

The suit further claims that evidence of Nissan’s knowledge of the alleged defect can be seen in the owner’s manual for the Frontier, which states that the curtain air bags are designed to inflate in rollover or near rollover conditions and can inflate due to certain vehicle movements such as severe off-roading.

“It is plaintiff’s contention, based upon plaintiff’s own experiences, and based upon plaintiff’s awareness of the complaints of other class members, that the class vehicles are too sensitive. As a result the ‘near rollover conditions’ design threshold, which signals the side curtain air bags and seatbelt pretensioner igniters to deploy, signals deployment under conditions where there is no true risk of a rollover,” the complaint states.

Brantley asserts Nissan refused to warn customers about the alleged defect, refused to remedy the defect and refused to compensate customers for any damages resulting from the defect.

The suit seeks certification of a class consisting of everyone who has bought or leased a class vehicle, as well as an order holding Nissan financially responsible for the defect, enjoining the automaker from continuing its deceptive practices, requiring the automaker to fix the defect and making Nissan disgorge part or all of its profits received from the sale or lease of the class vehicles.

The case is Brantley v. Nissan North America Inc. et al., case number BC609400, in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles.

Target not on Target with Overtime Pay? The discount retailer got hit with an employment class action lawsuit this week. Filed in New York, by Robert LaPointe Jr, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, the Target lawsuit claims violations of New York Labor Law, specifically, that Target failed to compensate him for overtime worked.

According to the suit, LaPointe worked for Target as an operations group leader in the company warehouses in New York from 2011 to 2015. While at work, the suit states that LaPointe regularly worked in excess of 40 hours per week.

LaPointe asserts that Target failed to pay an overtime premium to him and others in the class for additional hours worked. This, the suit states, is because the employees were misclassified as exempt from the overtime requirements of the New York Labor Law. Additionally, the suit claims Target failed to provide accurate wage statements.

LaPointe and others in the class seek to recover unpaid overtime wages, interests, statutory penalties, injunctive relief, attorney fees and other court costs.

The case is U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Case number 1:16-cv-00656-VSB.

Top Settlements

TVM Award for the Victim…This settlement makes two out of two for the plaintiffs. A $13.5 million verdict has been awarded by a Philadelphia jury in the second transvaginal pelvic mesh injury lawsuit pending against Johnson & Johnson, and its subsidiary Ethicon, makers of the defective pelvic mesh.

The jury agreed that an Ethicon Inc. transvaginal tape product, known as TVT, was not reasonably safe, and that plaintiff Sharon Carlino’s physician would never have implanted the product had he been aware of its risks.

In her suit, Carlino claimed that as a result of having the defective pelvic mesh implanted, she was in near constant pain and discomfort, and was unable to have sex.

The transvaginal mesh verdict is the second damage award against Ethicon. The company is facing nearly 180 cases consolidated as part of a mass tort program in Philadelphia County’s Court of Common Pleas, which began to go to trial in December.

In the initial case, the jury awarded $12.5 million to the plaintiff, agreeing that Ethicon’s Prolift pelvic mesh product was negligently designed and that a physician who implanted the product in plaintiff Patricia Hammons in 2009 received inadequate warnings about the risks.

This most recent verdict returned for Carlino includes $10 million in punitive damages, $3.5 million in compensatory damages, and another $250,000 to Carlino’s husband for loss of consortium.

The case is Carlino et al. v. Ethicon Inc. et al., case number 130603470, in the Court of Common Pleas of the State of Pennsylvania, County of Philadelphia.

Ok! So, that’s a wrap folks… See you at the Bar!

Week Adjourned: 3.13.15 – Tinder, Airline Tourist Tax, TVM (Mesh Implants)

Top Class Action Lawsuits

Come on baby, light my fire—oh—wait—did we mention there’s a charge? Tinder got hit with a consumer fraud class action lawsuit this week by a disgruntled user who alleges the social media company lures customers into signing up for its dating app by advertising it as being free and later charging customers if they want to continue using the app.

Filed by California resident Billy Warner, the Tinder lawsuit states the Tinder is running “a classic bait and switch” program, which results from the company’s recent announcement that it will begin charging customers $2.99 per month. Warner claims that he is “entrenched in the use” of the app and had he known that Tinder would charge for it, he would not have downloaded it. Really? Unlimited opportunities to hook up for less than the price of one designer coffee? You do the math. But the issue isn’t about whether they should charge…

“Defendant offered these free services with the goal in mind of enlisting a user base of tens or hundreds of millions of users, with the ultimate goal of later changing the rules of participation and deceptively and forcibly migrating a substantially percentage of its user based to a paid subscription model,” the complaint states.

Warner contends that “Had Defendant warned Plaintiff that additional fees may apply, Plaintiff would have reconsidered Plaintiff’s use of Defendant’s app….Failure to disclose that additional fees may apply unfairly induced Plaintiff’s downloading of Defendant’s app, as he reasonably believed it to be a ‘free’ service.” That’s the issue.

“Tinder has, up until now, allowed users to enjoy unlimited free swipes and has been a free app,” according to the lawsuit. “Tinder has never advertised, represented, or otherwise indicated to its customers, including plaintiff, that the use of its services will require any form or payment.”

Warner discovered that he would have to pay $2.99 per month to continue using the app when he was notified that he was out of “likes” and that he could purchase unlimited “likes” for $2.99 per month.

“[Tinder’s] abrupt policy change constitutes an unfair and deceptive trade practice, put into place to forcibly migrate users to paid subscription services, in order to receive the same services that had previously been provided and advertised free of charge,” the class action lawsuit states.

The class seeks to represent a California class of Tinder users, who downloaded the app before March 2.

Warner is charging Tinder with violating the California False Advertising Act and unlawful, unfair, and fraudulent conduct according to California’s Unfair Competition Law. U.S. District Court for the Central District of California case number 2:15-cv-01668.

Heads up Mexican Nationals who have traveled home since June 1999… A consumer fraud class action lawsuit has been filed against several airlines by a group of Mexican nationals who allege they have been forced to pay a “Mexico tourism tax” they weren’t obligated to pay. The plaintiffs claim they have paid millions of dollars in this tax to airlines including United Airlines Inc. and Delta Airlines Inc.

The Mexican tourist tax lawsuit claims violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, specifically that the airlines wrongfully charged the plaintiffs, including children under the age of 2 who took flights between the US and Mexico, $20 to $25 for the Mexico Tourism Tax. They allege the airlines fraudulently represent to passengers that the Mexican government requires them to collect the tax, then keep the proceeds.

The Mexican tax is mandatory charged to certain travelers who arrive in Mexico on flights originating outside the county. However, Mexican nationals, residents and children under the age of two are exempt from the tax, according to the suit.

According to the allegations, an arrangement was reached between the airlines and the government in June 1999 to collect the tax but was actively concealed from the public by the defendants for many years. The airlines knew which passengers wouldn’t be subject to the tax because they would know their passport numbers and nationalities once they purchased their tickets, according to the complaint.

“Under the agreement, the defendants agreed to have mechanisms in place to distinguish the cases in which the Mexico tourism tax does not apply,” the suit states. “Since 1999 (or about the dates that each defendant began operating flights to/from Mexico), rather than collect only the tax that should have been charged … the defendants on information and belief, have obtained, retained, and reinvested those improperly collected taxes into their respective operations.”

Other airlines named as defendants in the proposed class action are American Airlines Inc., AeroVias de Mexico SA de CV, Concesionaria Vuela Compania de Aviacion, SAPI de CV, ABC Aerolineas SA de CV, and US Airways Inc.

The plaintiffs seek to represent a class of Mexican nationals, guardians of children under the age of two at the time of travel and foreigners with resident status in Mexico who flew between the U.S. and Mexico beginning in June 1999.

The case is Almanza et al. v. United Airlines, Inc. et al., case number 2:15-cv-00033 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Top Settlements

Mesh mess continues… Ethicon, the division of Johnson & Johnson that makes TVT Abbrevo, one of many transvaginal mesh products that are the subject of several thousand lawsuits, has been found liable and ordered to pay $5.7 million to plaintiff Coleen Perry.

The jury hearing Perry’s case deliberated for three days and found that Ethicon’s conduct regarding the TVT Abbrevo vaginal sling amounted to “malice,” her lawyer said. They awarded Perry $700,000 in compensatory damages and an additional $5 million in punitive damages.

This Ethicon verdict makes the fourth against the company. Currently, over 36,000 lawsuits have been filed against the TVT manufacturer in both state and federal courts, all alleging the devices, which are used to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, are defectively designed and result in significant personal injury.

Perry claimed the Abbrevo mesh began to erode in her body, causing pain that she said she expects to last the rest of her life, Reuters reported.

The FDA approved Abbrevo, one of Ethicon’s newer models of mesh products, in 2010, specifically to treat stress urinary incontinence. Perry, received her implant in 2011. She said she began experiencing a “pulling-type” pain almost immediately after surgery, Reuters reports.

The case is Perry et al v. Luu et al, Superior Court of the State of California, Kern County, No. 5-1500-CV-279123.

Hokee Dokee- That’s a wrap folks…Time to adjourn for the week. See you at the bar!

Week Adjourned: 11.21.14 – Chrysler, Sephora, Boston Scientific

The top class action lawsuits and settlements for the week. Top stories include Chrysler, Sephora and Boston Scientific Mesh.

Top Class Action Lawsuits

Tipsy TIPMs? Topping the list this week? Another defective automotive class action lawsuit—surprise, surprise. Never would have guessed, right?

This one was filed in federal court against Chrysler Group LLC. The lawsuit seeks to hold the Big Three automobile maker accountable for economic losses suffered by owners and passengers of Chrysler cars and trucks that stalled, caught fire or sustained other potentially life-endangering malfunctions due to a faulty onboard computer.

The Chrysler lawsuit alleges that Chrysler knew about and fraudulently concealed the defectiveness of its Totally Integrated Power Module—TIPM, for short. Chrysler sought as far back as 2005 to hide the magnitude of the TIPM defect from consumers and initiated only limited vehicle recalls, the complaint alleges.

Despite knowing about the defect, Chrysler continued installing faulty TIPMs in vehicles until the 2014 model year, according to the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The TIPM is an integral component of many Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep models on the road today, the device controls and distributes power to all of a vehicle’s electrical functions. Prone to sudden failure, a vehicle’s TIPM poses a serious safety issue, placing the driver and passengers at risk of harm, the complaint indicates.

A failed TIPM causes malfunctioning of airbags, headlights, brakes, horns, wipers, windows, door locks and other components that rely on electrical functions.Worse, a failed TIPM can cause a vehicle’s engine to shut down unexpectedly while driving at high speeds.

“Millions of consumers who have bought into this brand have suffered harm because of Chrysler and its faulty Totally Integrated Power Module,” the complaint alleges.

Owners of defective TIPM-equipped Chrysler vehicles suffer economic losses in part because the device is expensive to replace, costing upward of $1,000. Also, because of the sheer number of vehicles requiring a new TIPM, consumers are forced to make do without their vehicles for many days and even weeks while their vehicles sit in the shop and wait for a replacement TIPM to be shipped. Adding insult to injury, the defect caused many motorists to incur unnecessary costs to replace non-defective parts that malfunctioned because of the faulty TIPM.

Ugly Side of Beauty Biz? Sephora USA Inc. is facing a proposed discrimination class action lawsuit. Filed in New York federal court, the discrimination lawsuit claims the company deactivated thousands of Asian customers’ accounts, allegedly motivated by a racist belief that they were buying discounted beauty products in bulk and reselling them for profit.

Brought by four women of Chinese descent, the discrimination class action claims Sephora shut down Asian users’ accounts after its site crashed on November 6, due to a surge in web traffic resulting from a 20 percent-off sale promotion. According to Sephora, reselling of its products is pervasive. The company said it blocked some North American and international customer accounts for this reason.

According to the plaintiffs, the only accounts that were deactivated were those that used Chinese web domains or had names that Sephora perceived as being of Asian origin. A plaintiffs’ attorney said an investigation revealed that only users who fell into those two categories had their accounts blocked.

According to the lawsuit, the four named plaintiffs live in New York, Philadelphia, and Columbus, Ohio, and were all members of Sephora’s ‘Beauty Insider’ program. The program gives customers who spend certain amounts on the company’s products access to discounts and other promotions. The points the women accumulated by buying Sephora products, and which give access to additional discounts and special gifts, have been lost, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys. Sephora alleges it only went ahead with the deactivations after it “identified certain entities who take advantage of promotional opportunities to purchase products in large volume on our website and resell them through other channels.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said that instead of deactivating accounts, Sephora could have addressed the resale issue by limiting the number of products a single customer could purchase or capping the amount of money they could spend. Sounds sensible.

The named plaintiffs seek to represent a class of Sephora customers who were part of the Beauty Insider program who either are or are perceived as being of Chinese or Asian ethnicity and had their accounts blocked or deactivated following the website crash. The potential class is expected to be in the thousands.

The case is Xiao Xiao et al., v. Sephora USA Inc. et al., case number 14-cv-9181, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Top Settlements

Boston Scientific Bellwether Results… A jury has awarded $18.5 million against Boston Scientific Corp in settlement of transvaginal mesh litigation brought by four women who alleged the implanted medical device left them with nerve damage, infections and pain during sex.

The trial was heard by a federal jury in West Virginia and is the second verdict against the company over defective vaginal slings. Last week a federal jury in Florida issued a $26.7 million verdict against Boston Scientific for providing insufficient warnings about the risks of its Pinnacle mesh device.

The four women in the West Virginia case sued Boston Scientific over the defective Obtryx transvaginal sling. “In these cases, the jurors clearly understood that Boston Scientific moved too quickly in bringing its product to market, and that it used inappropriate materials while at the same time failing to warn doctors and patients about the risks involved,” said on the of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs. Each of the women will receive $1 million in punitive damages under the terms of the settlement.

The multidistrict litigation being heard in Miami, also involved four women who alleged suffering and injury after having the sling implanted. It was the first federal bellwether trial against Boston Scientific, one of seven manufacturers of pelvic mesh that face about 60,000 lawsuits across the country.

Transvaginal Mesh and Transvaginal Slings are medical devices that are surgically implanted to treat Pelvic Organ Prolapse (POP) and/or Stress Urinary Incontinence(SUI).

Hokee Dokee—Time to adjourn for the week. Have a fab weekend–See you at the bar!

Week Adjourned: 8.17.12 – Jones Lang Lasalle, Doctor Discounts, Avaulta Mesh

The weekly wrap of top class action lawsuits and settlements for the week ending August 17, 2012.

Top Class Actions

More unpaid overtime lawsuits this week – and top of the pile is a potential class action lawsuit filed against commercial real estate brokerage giant Jones Lang Lasalle.

The unpaid overtime class action lawsuit was filed by maintenance worker and lead plaintiff Larry Jackson who alleges he was incorrectly classified as exempt from overtime. In January, Jones Lang Lasalle allegedly reclassified its maintenance workers from salary to hourly employees, according to a lawsuit. Jackson claims that as a result, the refuses to pay him overtime after 40 hours a week.

“Since plaintiff has been re-classified, there have been multiple instances where he has not been paid for all of his overtime hours,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiff’s manager has either doctored his time card to show that plaintiff only worked 40 hours or outright refused to pay plaintiff for his overtime hours.”

Jackson seeks actual and punitive damages for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. He is represented by J. Derek Braziel with Lee Braziel in Dallas.

Top Settlements

It’s settled but not over… for Christine Scott, who was awarded $5.5 in settlement of her Avaulta lawsuit. Scott filed the lawsuit against C.R. Bard over a transvaginal mesh implantation.

Scott, just 53, claims the problems stem from the Bard Avaulta mesh implant she was provided with in 2008 to treat occasional urinary incontinence. The TVM lawsuit alleged Scott now suffers from chronic pain and can no longer enjoy intercourse with her husband as a result of a transvaginal mesh implant. The case is Scott v. Kannappan, S-1500-CV-266034-WDE, Superior Court for Kern County, California (Bakersfield).

Scott was given the Avaulta Plus Biosynthetic Support System, a product C.R. Bard no longer sells in the US. It remains available elsewhere in the world. Scott launched her Avaulta lawsuit in January 2009 upon learning the previous October that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had issued a warning to doctors pertaining to “rare” but “serious” complications originating with the mesh in some patients.

Scott testified that for five months she could only urinate with a catheter. It has also been discovered the mesh has eroded within her body, breaking apart and becoming intertwined with her organs and surrounding tissue. The mesh is causing ongoing internal lacerations, infection and abscesses.

The Bard mesh is also protruding through and into her vagina, making intercourse impossible. And because the mesh has become so intertwined with her vital pelvic organs and other tissue, it can never be safely removed.

The problems with Bard Avaulta have resulted in eight subsequent surgeries and nine additional procedures related to the internal damage wrought by the mesh product. The experience has also resulted in the need for ongoing psychiatric care. At trial, her psychologist testified the plaintiff would require ongoing therapy for the remainder of her life.

Doctor discount program? In what parallel universe does that happen? Certainly not ours, is the answer the courts handed down this week. Final approval of a consumer fraud class action settlement in Smith, et al v. Collinsworth, et al. has been obtained on behalf of approximately 48,000 consumers who were sold a limited benefit health insurance policy and a membership in a doctor discount program marketed as providing coverage that was as good or better than major medical, but who found out otherwise when they got sick and were saddled with large unpaid bills.

According to the Circuit Court of Saline County Arkansas, which approved the settlement, “the value of the settlement exceeds $40 million,” plus it “provides … injunctive relief designed to address the gravamen of the claims at issue in this Action.” The doctor discount program lawsuit has been in progress for seven years.

The lawsuit alleged that the health insurer and the doctor discount network, through their shared sales force, misrepresented the combination of a limited benefits health insurance policy and the doctor discount program as providing coverage that was equal to or better than major medical policies issued by companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield. In fact the combination of products provided only a fraction of what would have been paid by major medical policy and left class members with crippling bills. The litigation class was certified in September 2009 by the Circuit Court of Saline County, Arkansas, and class certification was affirmed by the Arkansas Supreme Court in December 2010 in United Am. Ins. v. Smith (see 2010 Ark. 468 (2010)).

Ok – that’s it for this week – see you at the pool bar!