Tag Archives: class action

Hardware Store Finds Safe Harbor

Hammer time.

A popular hardware store has settled a class action lawsuit after some tooling around with their sales process. Harbor Freight, which has locations across the United States, agreed that they may have misstated discounts and coupon offers over a 4 year period. The settlement reads that anyone who purchased a product from Harbor Freight between April 8 2011 and Dec 15 2016 are now eligible to a reward. Customers will have their choice of 20% of the purchased product’s amount in cash, or 30% in Harbor Freight gift cards. The lawsuit, Beck v Harbor Freight, was filed at the Court of Common Pleas in Lake County, OH. Read more

Disney Animators Draw Up Agreement

If the glass slipper fits

Anti-poaching agreements prohibit companies from pitching a potential position to, and subsequently hiring, employees from their competitors. The companies refrain from increasing their employees’ wages past the initial contracted rate, leaving the employees stagnant. As a result, the employees and their wages suffer.  The Walt Disney Company is guilty of anti-poaching practices, and have agreed to settle a class action lawsuit in the amount of $100 million. Other involved companies in this present settlement include Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Two PIC MC. Disney is the last of several major companies to settle. The animation and visual effects companies that previously entered settlements are DreamWorks Animation, Fox’s Blue Sky Studios, Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc., and Sony Pictures Animation Inc. Read More

Fantasy Sports Headed Back to Reality

Even the Wild West did not stay wild forever

Those who have been dreaming of making money in daily fantasy sports may be in for a rude awakening. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against the 2 major players in the industry, DraftKings and FanDuel, questioning the self-regulatory methods of their contests. The recent scandal has shades of insider trading, where employees from each company would take the internal information (including player rankings, strategy, etc) and submit “teams” to the opposing company. Both companies have been advertising heavily with popular sports leagues like the NFL and MLB, leading many to believe they are very financially successful. The latest lawsuit was filed by a man from Watertown, MA (DraftKings is based in Boston, while FanDuel is based in New York City). Read More

Mayweather-Pacquiao Promoters Get Jabbed

Jab, Cross, Hook

The sport of boxing has not had much of an impact on pop culture or news headlines in the past 20 years, and the latest event may have put the sport down for the count. The heavily-promoted match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao has come under serious criticism for how uneventful and expensive it was, and now people are calling their lawyers. Multiple class-action lawsuits have been filed against all parties involved, especially the promoters of the fight itself. The pay-per-view main event charged $99 per household, with Mayweather winning in unexciting fashion; however it was revealed after the match that Pacquiao had a pretty serious shoulder injury. Plaintiff’s claim that they were duped into paying for the fight regardless of the promoters’ knowledge of the injury, choosing to “go on with the show” due to the massive amounts of money each company pulled in from advertising.

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Uber and Lyft are Driving People Crazy

Speeding to the courtroom

While many people love the convenience of having a car appear at your doorstep at the tap of a button, it appears that those days may be numbered. The popular transportation services Uber and Lyft are headed to the courtroom, thanks to unhappy drivers. The main issue seems to center around a debate on whether or not the drivers of these services are employees or simply independent contractors. We’ve talked in the past about Uber’s problems with the law, however this series of lawsuits may force the companies to alter their business model. The lawsuits were filed in the San Francisco Federal Court and are only relevant to California-based drivers, although the results of each class-action will be closely monitored by drivers across the United States. Read more