class-actionlawsuit
Latest
Hulu snags documentary series on the Fyre Festival fiasco
Last year's ill-fated Fyre Festival (almost) took place in the Bahamas; it also ended up with seven fraud and negligence class-action lawsuits. Co-founder Billy McFarland (above), who co-created the festival with rapper Ja Rule, was also arrested and charged with wire fraud. He ultimately pled guilty to misleading investors. Now Hulu has picked up a multi-part documentary series about the debacle, which is being jointly developed by Billboard, Mic and production company The Cinemart.
Game on: NFL likeness lawsuit against EA moving forward
A motion filed by EA to dismiss a class-action lawsuit filed against it by 6,000 retired NFL players has failed, reports Gamasutra. As you'll recall, the players that filed the suit claimed that their likenesses were used in Madden 09 without permission or compensation. While the player's names and numbers were changed, vital and identifiable statistics were left unchanged.Rather than argue that it in fact didn't replicate real-world players without authorization, EA's motion to dismiss postulated that Madden 09's use of player likenesses was covered by the First Amendment, and therefore did not require consent or compensation. Since this motion was denied, the case will move on to court. Plaintiffs are seeking legal fees, damages and all profits generated through the use of said plaintiffs' likenesses.
Overheating iPad suit dismissed
Shortly after the first iPad shipped last April, there were some allegations from users that the device overheated quickly in warm weather or direct sunlight. By July of 2010, three disgruntled iPad owners -- John Browning, Jacob Balthazar and Claudia Keller -- had filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple. Due to the alleged shut down problem from overheating, the trio stated that they felt that they had been taken in by Apple marketing claims that said that "reading on iPad is just like reading a book." Since books never overheat and shut down, the group accused Apple of fraud, deceptive advertising, and violating State of California consumer protection laws by producing, advertising and selling defective tablets. Last Thursday, US District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel dismissed the lawsuit, saying that the trio's charges were "inadequate" and that they should have cited specific advertising where the claims of "reading on iPad is just like reading a book" were made. He's given the group 30 days to file an amended complaint with the information he's requested. I don't know about you, but I have never thought that reading on an iPad is like reading a book. I don't have to charge a book, I don't have to turn a book on, and a book can't do other things (like play music in the background) while I'm reading it. Have you ever had your iPad overheat and shut down? If you have, let us know in the comments. [via The Mac Observer]
Google agrees to pay $8.5 million to make Buzz privacy lawsuits go away
Remember back when Google's Buzz social networking app shared user's private information without their consent? Heck, do you remember Buzz at all? Suffice it to say that some unhappy folks sued, and it looks like they're about to accept a hefty settlement in place of their day in court. Though no money's exchanged hands quite yet and a judge has yet to approve, Google's agreed to drop $8.5 million and "disseminate wider public education about the privacy aspects of Google Buzz" as part of a class-action settlement, according to court documents. While there's certainly a chunk of dough potentially being doled out here, we have to imagine individual Gmail users won't be seeing much -- most will go to "organizations focused on Internet privacy policy or privacy education" -- which makes us wonder if $8.5 million isn't a small price to pay to get Buzz back into the national news feeds. In related (or possibly completely coincidental) news, Google took the opportunity today to revamp its master Privacy Policy. Read all about it at our more coverage link, if you're into that kind of stuff.
Sorry your iPod nano got so scratched five years ago, here's your $37.50
Hey, remember five years ago when the first-gen iPod nano came out and everyone in the world (literally) was sad because it scratched so easily? And then Walt Mossberg was sad, too? And then, inevitably, there was a class-action lawsuit filed, even though the lead plaintiff was like, "no, really guys, I'm cool?" No? Well shake off those cobwebs and get ready to party in a moderate way, because your check for $37.50 is in the mail. Yep, that's all individual consumers get in the settlement, which first started processing claims in December -- we're guessing the plaintiff's attorneys managed to score themselves a little more than that, because they worked so hard defending our interests. But hey -- one thirteenth of an iPad ain't so bad, right? And you wonder why we rarely cover class-action lawsuits. [Thanks, Phil]
Appeals court sides with Apple in iPod hearing loss dispute
Well, it looks like that iPod hearing loss lawsuit that's been nagging Apple for the past couple of years may finally be going away (in its current form, at least), as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has now affirmed a 2008 district court ruling and rejected a class-action lawsuit that sought to hold Apple responsible for hearing loss allegedly caused by iPods. While that may be a possibility, the court said that the "plaintiffs do not allege the iPods failed to do anything they were designed to do nor do they allege that they, or any others, have suffered or are substantially certain to suffer inevitable hearing loss or other injury from iPod use" -- further adding that, "at most, the plaintiffs plead a potential risk of hearing loss not to themselves, but to other unidentified iPod users," which doesn't quite make the grade for a class-action suit. Not surprisingly, neither Apple nor the plaintiffs are making any comments on the verdict, and we're pretty sure that Apple would like to keep it that way.
Banned Xbox modders get a class-action lawsuit to call their own
You had to know someone out there would try and profit off Microsoft's recent mass bannination of modded Xbox 360 consoles from Xbox Live, and although the eBay scammers arguably got there first, we're awarding the style trophy to AbingtonIP, an Oklahoma law firm that's trying to gin up a class-action lawsuit. Why? Because even though the XBL terms of service expressly prohibit modded consoles, AbingtonIP thinks it's not fair for Microsoft to have timed the ban to coincide with the release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and it also thinks it's unfair for an XBL ban to affect "Xbox functionality not associated with piracy" like Netflix, arcade games, and DLC. A noble cause, to be sure, but if you're a modder who didn't think there was a chance you'd be booted from Live at some point, you're not a very smart modder -- and Microsoft isn't under any obligation to time its bans for the convenience of people breaking its terms of service. The firm is just at the generating-interest phase and hasn't filed anything yet, so we'll see how far these freedom fighters get -- we'd guess this one dies on the vine.
First Sidekick class-action lawsuits predictably get underway
Our usual rule is to ignore attention-seeking class-action lawsuits until they make it past the critical step of being certified by a judge, but we think it's pretty wild that the Sidekick debacle has already resulted in two separate suits in two different states. That's a turnaround time of just a few days, really -- and now that Microsoft is saying it can restore most of the lost data, it'll be interesting to see if these cases can push on past the early stages. Both the California and Washington state cases allege that T-Mobile misled customers into thinking their data was secure, but for some reason we're particularly amused at the California case filed by a mother whose aspiring model and singer-songwriter daughter lost "photos and song lyrics" she'd entrusted to her Sidekick -- honestly, what judge can't relate to her situation?
Attention Sprint Treo 600 owners: you're owed $27.50
Sure, Sprint and Palm are hoping the Pre turns the page on their relatively dark recent past, but karma's a bitch sometimes -- the other Palm news this week is that Sprint and Palm have settled a class-action lawsuit alleging the two companies misled customers into thinking there'd be WiFi and Bluetooth accessories for the Treo 600. Remember how crushed we all were when nothing ever hit the market? The pain was almost immeasurable -- unless you're a class-action settlement attorney, in which case you instinctively know anyone who bought a Sprint Treo 600 before October 27, 2004 is owed either a $20 Sprint service credit or a $27.50 credit to be used in Palm's online store. So, anyone still have their Treo 600 receipts from 2004? Yeah, we didn't think so.[Via TamsPalm]
LGJ: Class Dismissed
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: It seems almost weekly a new article appears on Joystiq referencing yet another class action filed against the game industry. If it's not consoles, it's kick pedals. As a result of this class action proliferation, I was asked by a reader to explain this whole class action concept in a little more detail. I'm sure most people have some idea of the basic concept behind the class action, but not necessarily why it's become the weapon of choice, so to speak, of certain disgruntled gamers or what these lawsuits actually entail. The basic idea behind a class action suit is to resolve a large number of suits with similar elements in one proceeding, rather than requiring each to have its own proceeding. These similarly situated plaintiffs make up the 'class' in the class action. Taking the red ring suit as an example, there are a large number of people whose Xbox360s red ringed who could file suit under the theory presented. Rather than force Microsoft to potentially deal with each suit individually, they can deal with that 'class' in a single legal action. In reality, that's a gross oversimplification of the process.
