Class actions have always been among the most powerful tools to secure justice in America. Here are a few recent news items that sure prove that point in a wide variety of cases!
Michelle Singletary, Personal Finance Columnist at the Washington Post, reports on the “Class-Action Settlement for Nearly Every Consumer.” This is a class-action settlement reached by the credit bureau TransUnion, which has has agreed to provide free credit-monitoring services to millions of consumers to settle claims that it illegally passed along private information for marketing purposes.” The deadline to sign up is fast approaching.
A 51-page class action suit, filed in federal court in Newark, NJ, “outlines a catalogue of misery that has persisted for decades” as the Passaic County Jail “despite repeated calls for improved inmate care and for upgrades to the 55-year-old Paterson facility.” The suit says the jail’s “severe overcrowding and subpar conditions, remains an ‘affront to human decency,’ with cheek-by-jowl inmates subjected to beatings, intimidation, sweltering heat, squalid living quarters and inadequate food fouled by rodent droppings.”
The Baltimore Sun reports that "Class action settlements may aid in repairing leaky pipes." They say, “While some leaks might be no big deal, others might require a full replacement of all the pipes in your home. Should your home contain polybutylene piping, you might have some financial help available - thanks to two multimillion-dollar class action lawsuits that will cover either 100 percent or 10 percent of the replacement work.”
In Philadelphia, a judge has upheld a “$185 million award against retail titan Wal-Mart in a class action alleging underpayment of Wal-Mart employees. The jury found that Wal-Mart employees were owed $1,462,910.35 in damages for off-the-clock work and $27,715,964 for rest break violations between March 19, 1998, and Dec. 31, 2001, and $1,031,430 for off-the-clock work and $48,258,111 for rest break violations between Jan. 1, 2002, and May 1, 2006."
And in Winona, MN, “Fastenal Company says it will pay a $10 million class-action settlement to former employees who sued the company last year for unpaid overtime wages and work-break pay.”
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