Tag: Walmart

Week Adjourned: 3.1.13 – Walmart, Budweiser, Apple

The week’s top class action lawsuits and settlements. This week’s highlights include Wal-Mart, Budweiser and Apple.

Walmart Lawsuit Block DetourTop Class Action Lawsuits

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again…Good advice, we hope, for the women who have just filed a regional gender discrimination class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart.

Now, to be clear, Wal-Mart is not unfamiliar with the allegations, as a national gender discrimination and employment class action was filed against the world’s largest retailer only to be dismissed in 2011 by the US Supreme Court. Had that class action gone through, the class of plaintiffs would likely have been in the hundreds of thousands. But it didn’t. So—now, acting on the advice from the Supreme Court, women are filing discrimination class actions by state. The one filed this week is the fifth such regional lawsuit.

Filed in Wisconsin by one current and four former employees, the class action, entitled Ladik et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Case No. 13-cv-00123, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, alleges that female employees are discriminated against when it comes to receiving compensation and promotions. The Wisconsin gender discrimination class action lawsuit is seeking to represent female workers employed by Wal-Mart since December 1998.

I’ll show my gender bias and wish them every success!

Hey Bud—this one’s for you! Oh heck yes. This week saw Anheuser Busch, the brewer of the self-proclaimed King of Beers—Budweiser —get hit with several consumer fraud class action lawsuits alleging that it waters down its Budweiser, Michelob and other top-selling beers. Tsk,Tsk. Do not go messing with people’s alcohol content gentlemen.

Filed in Pennsylvania, California and other states, the Budweiser lawsuits allege that consumers have been sold beer that contains less alcohol than advertised on the labels.

Specifically, the complaints allege that Anheuser Busch employs some of the most sophisticated process control technology in the world to precisely monitor the alcohol content at the final stages of production, and then adds additional water to produce beers with significantly lower alcohol content than is represented on the product labels, and depriving consumers of the value they paid for.

The lawsuits are based on information provided by former employees at the company’s 13 US breweries, some in high-level plant positions, according to lead lawyer Josh Boxer (MSN.com). “Our information comes from former employees at Anheuser-Busch, who have informed us that as a matter of corporate practice, all of their products mentioned (in the lawsuit) are watered down,” Boxer told MSN.com “It’s a simple cost-saving measure, and it’s very significant.”

The complaint alleges: “There are no impediments—economic, practical or legal—to AB accurately labeling its products to reflect their true alcohol content. Nevertheless, AB uniformly misrepresents and overstates that content.”

Nina Giampaoli who filed the California-based lawsuit, said “I think it’s wrong for huge corporations to lie to their loyal customers—I really feel cheated. No matter what the product is, people should be able to rely on the information companies put on their labels.”

I’ll drink to that!

Top Settlements

Nothin’ like a kid in an Apple—er, candy—store. This one is for all you parents out there who woke up on morning to find your credit card balance had magically grown—seemingly on its own. But wait—is that the patter of little feet I hear? Could it be the kids buying in-game extras from the Apple mobile apps store that’s the root of the mystery? You betcha!

And this week, Apple magnanimously agreed to pony up some gift cards, no total value given, by the way, in settlement of the consumer fraud class action it’s facing over what could only be described as unfair business practices.

If the Apple apps settlement is approved, parents would receive $5 iTunes gift cards. Wow—pack up the kids, you’re going on vacation!

Ok—here’s the skinny. The lawsuit is brought by parents who allege their children downloaded free games from the Apple mobile app store and then went on to buy in-game extras—effectively charging the cost of the games to their parents—without their parents’ knowledge. In some cases these charges ran into the hundreds of dollars. Yup.

If approved, Apple would build a website for people who wish to make a claim. As well the tech-giant would send e-mail notifications to some 23 million customers. OK, that ain’t chump change.

According to a report by CNN.com parents whose children incurred larger costs and who want more than $5 gift card, must provide proof that a larger amount was spent by their children during any 45-day period. Those who can show more than $30 in purchases may choose a cash refund instead of an Apple credit. Purchases made until the date of the settlement would be eligible for refunds, CNN.com reported.

Bad Apple! What kind of example does that set?

Ok—See you at the bar and Happy Friday!

 

Week Adjourned: 12.17.11

A wrap of the top class action lawsuits and settlements for the week ending December 17, 2011.

Top Class Actions

What Happened to that ‘Good Will Toward Men’ Thing? ‘Tis the season–and this thing called good will towards men apparently hasn’t caught on yet–in some parts. Case-in-point–Capital One. They’re facing a class action over allegations that they illegally obtain background checks on folks applying for jobs with the company. What’s in your wallet indeed!

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Plaintiff Kevin Smith and seeks to represent a class of all Capital One employees and job applicants for the past three years.

Essentially, the lawsuit accuses Capital One of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“the Act”) Act in a two ways. First, the lawsuit alleges that Capital One’s authorization form is flawed. The law imposes strict formatting requirements on companies who do background checks. The lawsuit alleges that by burying its background check authorization in a job application, including extraneous information, Capital One violated the law. On this claim, Capital One may be liable to all employees and prospective employees who signed Capital One’s standard job application.

Second, the lawsuit also alleges that Capital One failed to provide copies of the reports when it used them to take adverse employment actions, such as refusing to hire an applicant, refusing to promote an employee or terminating an employee. This practice also violates the Act, which requires companies to provide employees with copies of their background checks.

The lawsuit is potentially valuable to class members. Employees and prospective employees may be entitled to statutory damages of up to $1,000 for each violation. “Based on our understanding of Capital One’s practices, everyone who has applied or worked for Capital One in the past three years should be eligible to receive statutory damages if our lawsuit succeeds,” attorneys for the plaintiff(s) state.

Next up–Apple. All I have to say about this is Really? Here’s the skinny…

Cheap to the (Apple) Core? The uber cool icon of new technologies for the 21st century has been hit with an employment class action lawsuit. The suit alleges that Apple devised an illegal scheme of classifying at-home call center employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying Apple’s share of payroll taxes and other business related expenses through the use of a Yellow Dog Contract.

According to the lawsuit, Apple “hires workers to answer calls from its customers in regard to billing questions and technical support” but has devised an unlawful scheme of classifying the employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying for regular and overtime hours worked as well as the “the cost of the employer’s share of tax payments to the federal and state governments for income taxes, social security taxes, medicare insurance, unemployment insurance and payments for workers’ compensation insurance.” The complaint specifically alleges that in order to avoid the payment of these costs as required by law, the at home call center employees “are required by APPLE to each form a separate Virtual Services Corporation to act as a shell corporation as part of the scheme to insulate APPLE from APPLE’s liability for APPLE’s Business Related Expenses.” The class action lawsuit against Apple refers to these agreements between Apple and the employees as “Yellow Dog Contracts” that violate not only employment laws, but also fundamental public policy.

Top Settlements

A Fee-for-All at Walmart? Walmart has agreed to a $13.5 settlement of a securities class action this week. The lawsuit was brought by employee Jeremy Braden, and others, who alleged that the retail giant, together with Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit, passed along “unreasonably high fees and expenses” to its 2 million workers who had 401(k) plans. As with many 401(k) plans, Walmart’s contained a mixture of mutual funds representing investments in the bond and stock markets. The costs of managing those funds were passed along to employees.

According to a report in the AARP Bulletin the Walmart “settlement is a legal landmark because Walmart provides one of the largest 401(k) plans in the world and is the nation’s largest private employer, with more than $400 billion in annual sales.”

The timing is interesting in that the US Department of Labor is currently refining regulations around “fiduciary duty” and fee disclosure in 401(k) plans. And, the government is pressing for full disclosure of all fees paid to middlemen such as savings plan managers and wants stricter legal guidelines on how to provide the most prudent offerings at the lowest possible cost.

“I believe my account has experienced a loss in value, due to the reduced return on my investment in those plan investment options caused by the unreasonably high fees and expenses in those funds,” Braden stated in the lawsuit.

Under the terms of the settlement, Braden will collect $20,000. “Other employees covered by the class action suit will not receive payouts, but will benefit in the form of up to $9 million in reduced fees going forward. Lawyers for the plaintiffs will collect as much as $4 million,” AARP Bulletin reported.

Ok–That’s enough for this week. See you at the bar.