Julia Roberts has delivered a lot of great lines. One of my favorites is from Erin Brockovich: “By the way, we had that water brought in specially for you folks. Came from a well in Hinkley,” she tells the alarmed corporate lawyer about to take a sip.In the movie, Roberts’ character meets with moms, dads, …
There was a lot of national attention when Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme collapsed and it became clear that he had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from investors around the country. Many thousands of stories were written about how he went to prison, the SEC investigated both the scheme and how the scheme had been …
Banks and payday lenders have had a good deal going for a while: They could break the law, trick their customers in illegal ways, and not have to face any consumer lawsuits. Armed by some pretty bad 5-4 Supreme Court decisions, they could hide behind Forced Arbitration clauses (fine print contracts that say consumers can’t …
The CFPB Just Took a Huge Bite Out of Predatory Lending Read More »
This week, Sprint agreed to pay nearly $3 million in government fines after being caught by the Federal Trade Commission for cheating and deceiving people with low credit scores. As the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection explained, “Sprint failed to give many consumers required information about why they were placed in a more costly program, …
The past year was unprecedented in the world of auto safety. The world learned of ignition switches that could fail, causing loss of control and airbag non-deployment; airbags that shoot shrapnel into the occupant compartment when deploying; guardrails that skewer cars rather than cushion their impact; and other appalling defects resulting in one fifth of …
AIEG And Public Justice Join In Fighting Court Secrecy – We Need You In The Fight Read More »
Corporate America has been tireless in trying to sharply limit, or simply eliminate, all class action lawsuits. When corporations break the law by doing things such as not paying workers for time they work, paying women less than men, or by violating privacy rights in willful ways, Corporate America knows that workers and consumers can …
3 Blockbuster Supreme Court Cases that Could Spell Catastrophe for Workers and Consumers Read More »
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide an issue of huge importance to everyone who cares about access to justice. The question, in Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez, is whether corporate defendants in class actions are entitled to bribe class representatives to abandon the rest of the potential class members. Yes, you read that right. According …
A U.S. District Court finalized a $415 million wage settlement for tech workers Wednesday after four-years of litigation. Nearly 65,000 employees for Adobe, Apple, Google, and Intel filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit in 2011 after the government uncovered emails between Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and other executives that …
Tech Companies Ordered To Pay Employees $415 Million For Working Together To Lower Wages Read More »
In the wake of ATT Mobility v. Concepcion and Stolt-Nielsen v. AnimalFeeds,* many employers have sought to enact new arbitration agreements or to enforce arbitration provisions in older agreements to eliminate their employees’ ability to come together when seeking to vindicate their rights to enforce statutory protections for workers. Employers should be careful what they wish for, in …
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision on Monday in Wal-Mart v. Dukes understandably garnered front-page headlines in the nation’s newspapers. After all, the case was the largest employment discrimination case in history, dwarfing all other competitors by far with its potential to have included more than one-million current and former female Wal-Mart employees. But in reality, …
Why Wal-Mart Matters, But Perhaps Less Than You Think Read More »
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
