3M, one of Minnesota’s most respected companies is facing suit filed by a group of homeowners who allege that the company injured them and lowered their property values when its chemicals seeped into their drinking water.
3M Co. admits that the chemicals did seep into the water supply of thousands of homes in Washington County but doesn’t believe that those brought harm to anyone concerned.
Six residents of Washington County filed the case and their lawyers aim to bring the case to class-action status. If that happens, hundreds of millions of dollars could be at stake as well as the health concerns of more than 60,000 people.
Dawn Majerczyk, 43, of Chicago filed a class-action lawsuit against Menu Foods of Canada on Tuesday, alleging the pet food manufacturer delayed announcing a recall of 60 million containers of cat and dog food although it knew fully well that the said products were contaminated and were potentially deadly.
Majerczyk bought a package of Special Kitty, one of the 95 cat and dog food brands recalled by Menu Foods and gave it to her orange tabby, Phoenix. She said the 9-year-old cat fell sick last week just two days after eating the package. The cat had lost six pounds in four days and was lethargic, dehydrated, and nearly blind. The suit, filed by Chicago Attorney Jay Edelson, is seeking class-action status.
This is quite a blow to plaintiffs but the federal judge in Delaware has already dismissed portions of a class-action lawsuit filed against Intel for violating antitrust laws. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Farnan, in a ruling issued Wednesday, said that the U.S. court has no jurisdiction over the foreign conduct claims in a lawsuit that seeks to claim monetary damages for U.S. consumers and businesses who purchased PCs with Intel chips.
The said consumers complained that they were forced to pay too much because Intel used it near-monopoly position to prevent computer makers from using Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chips. Intel’s move has eliminated competition and has kept prices artificially high.
It looks like financial class-action lawsuits are popping up from almost everywhere lately. Or is this really the trend ever since? Here’s another financial suit to join the foray.
Washington Manual is alleged to have deceived its investors by steering them to the bank’s own portfolio of mutual funds which were less attractive than alternative funds. As a result, the company is now facing a class-action lawsuit.
The class-action lawsuit contains allegations that Washington Manual and its subsidiary companies had an undisclosed “preferred list” of funds. The suit also alleges that Washington Manual issued misleading disclosures and omissions regarding a side agreement intended to improperly promote WM Financial Services to favor the company’s propriety funds. This move allowed the company to drive sales, regardless of alternatives for their individual retail investor.
NovaStar is absolutely not in a very good shape right now. The company is now facing its second lawsuit by an investor alleging that certain company executives made false and misleading public statements about the company’s financial status.
Gary Tanner, the investor who filed the case, is represented by Kenneth Nelson of the Kansas City-based Nelson Law Firm PC. Tanner filed the case on Monday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
The suit contains allegations similar to those contained in a lawsuit filed on Friday by investor Robert Boyd III. Both lawsuits seek class-action status, making it eligible to anyone who bought NovaStar stocks between May 4, 2006, and Tuesday.
A class action lawsuit was filed by Seattle lawyer Bill Marler for people who became sick after eating a peanut butter that is contaminated with salmonella.
Marler Clark, a firm that specializes in food illness cases has been informed by almost 3,000 people in 40 states and several foreign countries about the situation. One family in Colombia, which took a case of possibly-contaminated peanut butter after a visit to the United States, is among those who contacted Marler Clark. Likewise, a soldier in Iraq who got peanut butter in a care package from home is also among these people.
Furthermore, the figure also includes more than a dozen people in Western Washington and two from Seattle.
Plaintiffs have charged a securities lawsuit to Quanta Capital Holdings Ltd. for misleading investors regarding the company’s losses from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
The suit, which was filed last week in US district court in New York, alleges that the Bermuda-based insurer and reinsurer released false prospectus statements concerning the December offer of nearly 15 million common and preferred shares.
Quanta, allegedly, estimated net losses of $62.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2005 as a result of the hurricanes. However, in March 2006, the company increased the figures to $78.7 million. And the suit alleges that this news prompted Quanta’s stock price to go down by nearly 40%.
Something is happening to Hewlett-Packard Company lately. The company has been into the mud and has been making unfortunate decisions with regards to their relationships with external entities. There’s that board room spying scandal and that alleged espionage against rival company, Dell Inc. And now, HP is once again facing another lawsuit just because it refused to fix a defective notebook computer.
Santa Clara Superior Court has already certified a consumer lawsuit to proceed as a class action against HP. The lawsuit involves certain HP Pavillion notebook computers that Braun Degenshein, the plaintiff, alleges to contain defective inverters.
Vermont Electric Power Co. (VELCO) gets slapped with a class-action lawsuit by two local lawyers who argue that the company has misrepresented the scope of its condemnation authority in getting land for transmission lines that will also carry fiber optic wires.
The complaint, filed in Addison County Superior Court by lawyers Peter Langrock and James Dumont on behalf of as many as 1,000 Vermont landowners, demands that VELCO must be stopped from further construction, installation, and leasing of fiber optic lines along its electrical transmission rights-of-way across plaintiff’s land. It also asks the company to remove any lines that are not directly needed for the transmission of electricity.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a class action lawsuit against Otay Mesa, an immigration jailhouse in San Diego. The complaint was filed due to the overcrowded and unsafe conditions of the immigration detainees who are crammed three to a cell in cramped cells built for two.
David Blair-Loy, legal director for the local ACLU said that the facility is basically stuffing people like sardines in tiny cells. The Union also contends that people being held for immigration violations, which are violations of civil laws and not criminal laws, are constitutionally entitled to better conditions than criminal defendants.