Consumer Class Actions
Consumer class actions are what many people think of when someone tries to outlaw class actions as a plague on society, a killer of jobs, a greed-fueled orgy of destruction… Well. You get the idea.
Very little of that is real, of course. Consumer class actions are important for two reasons. First, very few people will take the time to return a $30 “all natural” product when they find out it contains plastic. Second, people may never know unless a government agency or consumer group (or one of us) figures it out.
Consumer class actions focus on defects or lies about mass-market, relatively small value products. Most states have consumer protection laws, often coupled with false advertising laws. These laws tend to focus on statements the company made that weren’t true, important stuff they left out, or something that was unfair or deceptive.
Along with these statutes, consumers are protected to varying degrees by warranty laws. Warranties come in two flavors: express and implied.
An express warranty is what you see every day, i.e. “We will repair your excellent brand-new overpriced coffee machine for thirty days and after that you’re on your own.”
Implied warranties are more subtle, but in many ways more powerful. In most states every consumer sale automatically comes with an implied warranty of “merchantability.” What this means is that the consumer is guaranteed a minimum level of quality. If you buy a 50 cent pencil and it doesn’t write, the company has broken its implied promise. If you buy a $40 million yacht and you can’t do . . . whatever yacht things people with yachts normally do, same.
In a consumer class action, we try to have these laws enforced to get people their money back, or change the way companies do business, or both.
Automobile Class Actions
These are exactly what they sound like, class actions about cars. Every car is going to need a repair sometimes. These cases focus on defects that apply to all of a given type of car. Sometimes it’s a problem that runs across different makes and models (like airbags) and sometimes it’s limited to one product run, like a manufacturing defect that shows up in a certain car made in the same plant.
These cases take on greater importance if a safety issue is involved. Rather than just get money back for people, we also have to do something to get the manufacturers to remedy the safety issue. These cases are difficult, but rewarding.
Employment Class Actions
These cases are also called “wage and hour” class actions. As in, “you’re not paying me minimum wage” and “I’m working too many hours for free.”
I read something interesting. If you take $12.50 out of the register where you work, everyone would agree you’ve committed a crime. But if your employer steals an hour of your work by not paying you for it ($12.50 is the minimum wage in New York), it’s handled much differently, if it’s even handled at all. Nobody’s getting arrested.
Even if the employer does this a hundred thousand times, it’s a civil lawsuit (us), a complaint to the union (if you can find one), or maybe a complaint to an understaffed government department.
I’ve done these cases for many years, but never thought about the difference in those terms. I suppose sometimes time is money, but not for everyone.
Housing Discrimination
One of my colleagues called me and asked my help on what seemed like an interesting case. His friend couldn’t rent an apartment. He had tried about fifteen places, but could never get a call back, or the apartment was suddenly not available any more.
Note: Names and details have been changed, and if you’re easy to upset, maybe stop reading now.
Of course, his friend was Black. An immigrant from the Caribbean with a noticeable accent. Also, a first name that one doesn’t normally associate with Anglo-Saxonism. He texted, called, emailed. But he was told that the apartments had already been rented, or the place needed more work before it was rented. Mostly he just got ghosted.
I was a little skeptical. This was 2020, after all. Rents were down in New York because of the pandemic, and this guy had a good income.
My distinguished colleague told me I was naïve, something I’m not usually called. But he picked ten of the apartment listings his friend had tried and got to work. He texted that his name was “Scott Whitford” and he was looking for an apartment. “Call me Whitey,” he would say in smooth, accentless English when he got a call back, which he always did. I’m not kidding, either, about the responses or the name.
Within two days, he had nine (out of of ten) appointments to see the apartments.
We took the case. And we’re going to take more.