Did you know that the U.S. Dept. of Justice files class action lawsuits?

The DOJ announced today that it had reached an agreement with American Airlines to settle a class action filed by the DOJ for the airline’s alleged violations of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA). The DOJ’s complaint alleged that American did not allow a class of more than 300 pilots to accrue vacation and sick leave benefits while on military leave to the same extent as pilots on comparable forms of non-military leave.

According to the DOJ, the American Airlines case, filed in 2006, was the first class action it has ever filed under USERRA, a federal statute that protects servicemembers’ and veterans’ civilian employment rights.

ABC reports that Pinkberry has settled a class action lawsuit after customers complained its frozen treat really wasn’t yogurt. According to the report, Pinkberry acknowledged it didn’t follow state guidelines that require frozen yogurt to be made off-site. The product will now be made at a dairy. Pinkberry will give $750,000 to two Southern California charities as part of the settlement.

Wait a minute… my memory on this is fuzzy but haven’t we seen this scenario before?

As discussed in this article in the San Diego Union-Tribune, Starbucks’ supervisors sharing tips left by customers in tip jars is at the heart of a class action lawsuit that is now headed to the damages phase. The class action brought nearly four years ago alleges that the company’s policy of sharing tips between baristas and shift supervisors violates state labor laws which prohibit such sharing.

Starbucks argued at trial that the shift supervisors were not managers, and performed many of the same tasks as baristas. On Feb. 28, the court found Starbucks liable, ruling that shift supervisors “both supervise and direct the acts of the baristas” at the 1,400 California stores the company operates.

The damages portion of the Starbucks trial begins today. Terry Chapko, a lawyer for the baristas, said the final amount could be in the “tens of millions” of dollars for the 120,000 people who have worked as baristas at Starbucks in California since October 2000.

According to this article from Reuters, Italian consumer group Adusbef may file Italy’s first class action lawsuit in its fight against Italian banks’ use of a “most hated” type of compound interest on loans.

The article notes that a recently enacted law will allow class action lawsuits to be filed in Italy for the first time beginning in July 2008, and Adusbef may bring such a suit against the practice of “anatocism, where compound interest is calculated on the initial loan plus interest that is accumulated each time the money comes due.”

Adusbef is quoted as stating that anatocism is a “form of usury” and “the most hated banking practice.” The article states that although it is banned by the Italian civil law code, Italian banks have been using compound interest for over 50 years.

A Manhattan appeals court (NY Appellate Division, First Judicial Dept.) ruled December 27, 2007 that billionaire Sam Wyly, a major Computer Associates shareholder, was not entitled to obtain the work product of three plaintiffs firms in connection with his claim that the firms settled the CA securities class action for too little.

The court held that unlike a tradtional attorney-client relationship, in which the single voice of a client governs matters such as settlement terms, “the relationship between appointed counsel and an absent member in a class action differs fundamentally….”  The court added that:

In sum, while petitioner herein, as an absent class member in the federal action, was entitled to some of the benefits of the attorney-client relationship, such as the right to privileged communications with class counsel and the prohibition against attempts by defendants’ counsel to communicate with him, he had no right to direct the course of the litigation, testify at trial, participate in discovery, or dismiss class counsel. Moreover, petitioner was free to hire his own counsel to appear in the class action if he wished to employ a traditional attorney-client relationship, although his input into the litigation would still have been curtailed, or to opt out of the class action altogether if he was unsatisfied with his limited role.

The full opinion is available here.

“Collective Litigation in Europe,” a report based on a survey created by the Economist Intelligence Unit concerning the future of “group” or “collective” litigation in Europe, concludes that such litigation is increasing steadily.  The survey, which is sponsored by the law firm Bryan Cave, asked 242 lawyers and business executives across Europe for their opinions on questions related to group litigation.  The full executive summary and survey results are available here.

Further to our post in February 2007 about the emerging lawsuit-financing industry in the UK, this article in today’s Legalweek.com reports that insurer Allianz is preparing to launch its own litigation fund in the UK called “Allianz ProzessFinanz” on November 1. Allianz reportedly will “be looking to invest in commercial disputes.”

Clifford Chance partner Matthew Newick is quoted in the article as stating that “this is an interesting development which could give class action activity in the UK and Europe a boost. Third-party funding will start to chip away at the structural differences between UK and US litigation.”

This article discusses a class action lawsuit filed in 1985–yes, 1985– in federal court in Michigan after a series of prison riots.  The lawsuit alleges that conditions in a Jackson prison complex violated the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.   

As if to show what can happen when a case languishes for 22 years, the article notes that

In 1985, fresh from the University of Michigan law school, Robert Jonker was a law clerk for U.S. District Judge John Feikens in Detroit when the class-action case was filed there. Twenty-two years later, as a new federal judge in Grand Rapids, Jonker assumed jurisdiction over the same case….

Judge Jonker reportedly stated during his first hearing on the case on Wednesday that "he is eager to see it settled."  Good luck with that!

According to this article in TheLawyer.com, the law firm Bryan Cave claims

to be the biggest American outfit in relation to running class actions “day in day out”.

Bryan Cave’s Phoenix managing partner Lawrence Scarborough, at a firm seminar today (23 August), said that while there are no official figures on how many class actions take place in the US annually, the firm considers itself to be the undisputed leader of the pack.

“We have reason to believe that there is no other firm day in day out that handles class action cases as much as we do,” said Scarborough.

The firm backed up this claim by stating that, at any one time, it has at least 100 class actions on-going in the US.

We alluded to a global warming-based class action briefly in this post but it is starting to look like a barrage of such cases could be on the way.  According to this post on the WSJ Law Blog, "law firms are girding for an explosion of climate-related work tied to government regulation, lawsuits against energy companies and so-called carbon credit markets," and a dozen or so firms have already organized formal "climate-change" practice groups (including Vinson & Elkins; Pillsbury Winthrop; and Thompson & Knight).

This article in the Dallas Morning News quoting Texas plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Susman states:

"Melting glaciers isn’t going to get that much going, but wait until the first big ski area closes because it has no snow," said Mr. Susman, who teaches a climate-change litigation course at the University of Houston Law School. "Or wait until portions of lower Manhattan and San Francisco are under water."

***

"You’re going to see some really serious exposure on the part of companies that are emitting CO{-2}," Mr. Susman predicted. "I can’t say for sure it’s going to be as big as the tobacco settlements, but then again it may even be bigger. We’re not going to know until the regulatory environment becomes clearer."