A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for the week of June 24-30.
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Tag Archives: Class Actions
What Does the Latest SCOTUS Ruling on Mass Actions Mean for New Jersey?
Earlier this week, the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in a closely watched case concerning state based mass actions. The decision, which shuts down certain forms of forum shopping, might lead to more lawsuits being filed in New Jersey state courts because of our state’s plaintiff-friendly laws and the fact that many major businesses call New Jersey home. Continue reading
Experts Provide An Update on TCCWNA Action
We have seen an explosion in the number of Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (TCCWNA) lawsuits and demand letters over the past couple of years. While many businesses settle such suits so they can focus on the business of doing business rather than spending a bunch of money on litigation, a few intrepid companies have fought the claims brought against them. Continue reading
Top News Clips for the Week of March 11-17
A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for the week of March 11-17.
Food Fight: Why Is There So Much Food & Beverage Litigation in New Jersey?
Red Bull does not actually give you wings. Some of Subway’s famous footlongs do not measure exactly twelve inches. Chobani Greek yogurt is made in the United States, not Greece. None of these statements are shocking, but each of them has recently been the subject of well-publicized lawsuits filed on behalf of consumers. Continue reading
The Super Bowl Lawsuit That Never Ends
According to the New York Times, Josh Finkelman is the “Erin Brockovich of Super Bowl tickets.” After paying well over face value for tickets to Super Bowl XLVIII, which was held at Met Life Stadium in 2014, he sued the National Football League under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, arguing he should have been able to attend the game without buying expensive tickets on the secondary market.
Three years and multiple dismissals later, this case is still dragging on. Unfortunately, this is just one example of the many abusive lawsuits New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) has encouraged.
Rather than incentivizing legal shakedowns, our consumer protection laws should be doing what their name suggests – protecting consumers. It’s time for our Legislature to enact some common sense reforms that keep consumer protections in place, but don’t encourage legal abuse for profit. The ball is in the red zone, it is time to make a play.
Bringing Common Sense To Our Legal System
Our court system shouldn’t have to deal with suits over the length of sandwiches, amusement park rides that make kids too dizzy, and gassy co-workers. But it does.
Why? Because numerous state laws explicitly encourage litigation when other means of dispute resolution would be quicker and more cost effective; poorly drafted statutes invite endless lawsuits over their interpretation; and antiquated policies limit the ability of our state to improve its legal climate.
Things have gotten so far off track, New Jersey has been named one of the nation’s worst “judicial hellholes.” At this point, there is nowhere to go but up, and the time is right to make changes, both legislatively and via judicial action.
Top News Clips for the Week of December 3-9
A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for the week of December 3-9. Continue reading
NJCJI Asks High Court to Nix Some TCCWNA Class Actions
The New Jersey Civil Justice Institute has filed an amicus brief in a class action brought by consumers who claim a restaurant’s failure to clearly post prices in the menu on all drink items violates New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) and Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty, and Notice Act (TCCWNA). NJCJI has been spearheading the effort to reform both the Consumer Fraud Act and the Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty, and Notice Act, so we are very interested in what the court will do with this case and a similar case where the court will decide whether “charging different prices for the same beverage, depending upon where in the restaurant the beverage was served” can be the basis of a CFA and TCCWNA class action. Continue reading
Top News Clips for the Week of November 26 – December 2
A selection of the need-to-know civil justice news for the week of November 26 – December 2.
Rising Slack Fill Lawsuits Test Function Of Packaging
Mike Helenthal | Legal News Line
Is at a matter of “more is less” or “what you see is what you get?” Slack fill lawsuits are on the rise, as any online user can see after typing the phrase into any search engine.
Meet The N.J. Lawyer Who Is His Own Lead Plaintiff In 100 Consumer Class Actions
Alison Frankel | Reuters
For a smart man, New Jersey lawyer Harold Hoffman makes a lot of bad purchases. Since 2011, Hoffman has been duped repeatedly by supposedly deceptive labels or other misleading features of products he has bought. Or, at least, that is what Hoffman has alleged in dozens of consumer fraud class actions filed between 2011 and 2014 in New Jersey Superior Court, naming an array of defendants from Target, Whole Foods and Time Warner to small-timers like Joint Juice and Paradise Herbs. In no fewer than 100 cases, according to a list compiled by one of Hoffman’s targets, Hoffman has appeared as both lead plaintiff and lead counsel. His barrage of class actions has become so notorious that a New York litigation boutique ran a blog post in September 2015 entitled, “Have you been sued by Harold Hoffman?”
Law Firm Is Ordered To Pay Nearly $27K For Suit Over Bad Online Reviews
Debra Cassens Weiss | ABA Journal
A Texas judge has tossed a suit filed by a law firm over bad online reviews and ordered it to pay nearly $27,000 in attorney fees as a sanction for bringing the legal action.
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