Class Action Blog : Consumer Fraud, Consumer Protection, Securities and Antitrust Lawyer & Attorney : Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz

Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz P.C. has filed a new class action on behalf of New York consumers; the complaint alleges that Rite Aid Corporation has deceptively overcharged thousands of New York consumers for generic drugs. Rite Aid advertises that consumers who join its “Rx Savings Program” will pay only $8.99 for a 30-day supply of more than 500 listed generic drugs, and $15.99 for a 90-day supply of the same 500 offerings. Rite-Aid offers “membership” in the Rx Savings Program, regardless of whether a consumer has health insurance or not. As a result, for those members who do have health insurance and who would otherwise be required to make an expensive copayment, membership in the Rx Savings Program offers the consumer significant savings.

However, MDPCE has uncovered evidence indicating that Rite Aid’s pharmacy computer system is programmed with a default setting that charges consumers their applicable insurance copayment, rather than the Rx Savings Program price. Given ever-escalating insurance costs, this copayment is oftentimes higher than the Rx Savings Program price. For example, a member of the Rx Savings Program with an insurance plan that requires a $25 co-pay for prescription medicine will be charged as a default the $25 co-pay, rather than the lower, advertised Rx Savings Program membership price. As a result, Rx Savings Program members who have had prescriptions processed using insurance are, unbeknownst to them, being charged a copayment that is higher than the Rx Savings Program price they should otherwise be charged.

Unfortunately, this deceptive practice may not be limited to Rite Aid. Most large retail pharmacies, such as CVS, Wal-Mart and Walgreens, have a generic drug savings program; if their pharmacy registers are programmed the same way Rite Aid’s appear to be, consumers may be at risk no matter where they have their prescriptions filled. If you have insurance that covers prescriptions and you purchase generic drugs, be sure you don’t pay a higher copayment, and it might be a good idea to check your records for prior purchases. It is possible that you have been charged an expensive copayment for your generic drugs instead of the price available through your pharmacy’s generic drug savings program.

If you or anyone you know has paid a copayment for a generic drug that is higher than the price advertised under a pharmacy’s savings program, please contact us to discuss your legal options.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

On June 20, 2011, the U. S. Supreme Court  overturned the certification of one of the most expansive class actions ever filed in the U.S. The Supreme Court ruled that in this case, plaintiffs had failed to come forward with sufficient evidence that the 1.5 million former and present female Wal-Mart employees in the class shared common legal claims for sex discrimination. The gist of the complaint is that Wal-Mart, despite its professed corporate policies against discrimination, ran a decentralized management system in which local and regional managers exercised unsupervised discretion regarding promotions. In this environment, plaintiffs alleged that women were discriminated against with regard to promotions and pay. In the majority’s view, the plaintiffs failed to meet the standards for class certification for injunctive and declaratory relief because the plaintiffs were suing “about literally millions of employment decisions at once,” rather than a uniform policy of bias affecting each class member in the same way. 

The class sought both injunctive relief, to enjoin Wal-Mart from continuing its discriminatory practices, and monetary relief in the form of back pay. With respect to the injunctive relief sought, the majority of the Court held that class certification was not appropriate because the class members had not put forth sufficient evidence showing that they shared common questions of law or fact as required under federal law. On the issue of monetary relief, the Court unanimously agreed that such relief was not available under the prong of the class action rules that governs certification of class actions  for injunctive and declaratory relief  because the monetary relief sought  is more than just incidental to the other relief sought. Here, the entire Court agreed that the back pay sought was not incidental.

The crux of the Court’s decision is on the first point, whether the class members’ claims shared commonality – i.e., that their claims depended on a common contention that if proved or disproved would resolve an issue central to the validity of each class member’s claim. Because Wal-Mart’s stated policy forbids sex discrimination, and employment and promotion decisions were delegated to regional managers, the majority of the Court concluded that there was no convincing proof that there was a company-wide discriminatory pay and promotion policy. Judge Scalia, writing for the majority noted that “without some glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions together, it will be impossible to say that examination of all the class member’s claims for relief will produce a common answer to the crucial question why was I disfavored.”  In light of Wal-Mart’s size and geographical scope, the majority found that “it is quite unbelievable that all managers would exercise their discretion in a common way without some common direction.” 

The dissenting justices disagreed with the majority’s commonality analysis finding that the evidence “suggests that gender bias suffused Wal-Mart’s company culture.”  According to the dissent, the common question among all plaintiffs -- whether Wal-Mart’s policies gave rise to unlawful discrimination – would require an examination of particular policies and practices that universally and commonly affected women employed by Wal-Mart to resolve. 

The Supreme Court’s ruling precludes the female Wal-Mart employees from proceeding with their sex discrimination claims against Wal-Mart as a nationwide class for injunctive relief and back pay, but does not preclude current and former women Wal-Mart employees from proceeding with their claims against Wal-Mart individually or perhaps as part of  smaller  regional or local classes. Importantly, the Supreme Court made no ruling on the central issue – whether Wal-Mart , in fact, has discriminated against its female employees regarding promotions and pay.

This decision highlights the severe ideological 5-4 split on the Supreme Court between the conservatives and the liberals on many issues before the Court. While this decision creates a greater challenge to large and diverse classes of plaintiffs seeking to enforce their rights collectively through a class action in the employment context where direct evidence of a corporate policy fostering discrimination is absent, the decision is not as damaging as the conservative pundits are claiming. The decision does not  change the legal standards for certifying class actions, large or small, seeking predominantly monetary damages that allege claims arising from a common practice causing a common injury. 

Moreover, the Dukes v. Wal-Mart decision should not be read to preclude the resolution of sex or other discrimination claims through a class action.   If you, or someone you know, have been the victim of discriminatory policies or practices in the workplace, please contact us so that we may discuss your legal rights.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

When people purchase gifts for others, retailers frequently provide a gift receipt that allows returns or exchanges. This is a major convenience for shoppers who are not sure that the person to whom they are giving the gift will like it, or if the size is right. The gift receipt does not show the purchase price, but it allows the gift recipient to return the gift for an equal exchange or the purchase amount. 

As helpful as a gift receipt can be, there are also potential dangers to consumers. In particular, if the gift item goes on sale after it was purchased, or even if the price is reduced, there is a risk that the retailer will improperly refund only the lower sale price. Unfortunately, it appears that may often be the case at Wal-Mart. Despite Wal-Mart’s claim that its policy is to provide refunds equal to the original purchase price, our investigations have uncovered what seems to be a widespread practice at Wal-Mart whereby its cashiers only refund the lower sale price. For some items, this can result in a loss to consumers of up to 50% of the original purchase price. 

Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz is investigating a potential class action against Wal-Mart in connection with this practice. If you or anyone you know returned an item to Wal-Mart using a gift receipt, please contact us to discuss your legal options.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Would it surprise you that purchasing “new” tires for your car or truck from major retailers, like Sears and Wal-Mart, may place you and your family in danger?  It shouldn’t, because even if a tire looks new and has good tread depth it may in fact have been manufactured many years prior to your purchase.  And tires that are more than 6 years old, even if never driven one mile, are much more susceptible to suddenly coming apart on the road.  There are thousands of consumer complaints online, and hundreds of lawsuits filed across the country, regarding “new” tires which were, in fact, manufactured many years ago resulting in the tires literally falling apart and causing catastrophic damage both to the vehicle and its passengers.

A tire’s biggest foes are heat and oxygen.  Over time, heat and oxygen break down a tire’s internal adhesive bond between the various layers of the tire’s internal laminate structure.  This phenomenon is known as thermo-oxidative degradation.  Thus, tires older than 6 years have been exposed to prolonged heat and oxygen, causing the tire to become a safety risk.  Indeed, the safety research firm, Safety Research & Strategies, Inc. ("SRS"), has linked 50 serious accidents and 37 fatalities to older tires.  Sean Kane, who runs SRS, asserts that, "The factor that linked them all together is the tires were all six years old or older and, in most cases, were unused or barely used, and had more than ample tread depth on them, and no visible appearance of any problem."  From the outside, tires may look perfectly fine, but Kane says as tires age, they start to break down on the inside, and that can cause them to suddenly come apart on the road.  "The tread will peel off like a banana, and that's what can cause a crash," he observes.  Kane wants tire companies to stamp an expiration date on their tires so consumers know to get rid of them after six years.

In any event, there is a way to determine the age of many tires.  A code printed on the side of all tires, called the DOT number, has three or four numbers.  If those numbers are, for example, 0, 3 and 6, it would mean the tire was made in the third week of either 1986 or 1996.  For tires made in 2000 and beyond, consumers should look at the last four numbers.  If they are 0, 3, 0, 1 it would mean the tire was made in the third week of 2001.

If you, one of your family members, or friends have been injured by a tread separation on a tire, please contact us to discuss your legal options.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

According to a recent New York Times article, consumers are purchasing more prepaid debit cards than ever before.  Buying a prepaid debit card is as easy as purchasing groceries or other items at your local pharmacy or supermarket.  For many consumers who do not have bank accounts or can not get a credit card, prepaid debit cards are the only option available to them, making these cards the banking industry’s fastest-growing products.   And because it is a relatively new industry, prepaid debit cards have not undergone the Congressional and regulatory scrutiny of traditional credit and debit cards issued by banks.  As such, consumers should be aware that not all prepaid debit cards are the same, and that some charge hidden or undisclosed fees.

For example, the MiCash Prepaid MasterCard charges cardholders a $9.95 activation fee, and then charges numerous recurring fees, including $1.75 for each A.T.M. withdrawal, $1 for each A.T.M. balance inquiry, 50 cents for each purchase, $4 for monthly maintenance, $2 for inactivity after 60 days and $1 for a call to customer service.  These fees can add up quickly, and dwarf the amount of money placed on the card by a consumer who has purchased a MiCash prepaid card.

Most importantly, many times the fees charged to consumers are buried in the fine print or not disclosed at all.  According to the New York Times, Pay-O-Matic Financial Services allegedly does not disclose any of the fees charged to consumers who purchase a Pay-O-Matic prepaid debit card.  The article discusses how a consumer in New York started to notice fees accumulating on his prepaid debit card after his paycheck was deposited into the card.  It was only after the consumer returned to Pay-O-Matic to complain was he provided with a detailed list of more than two dozen fees.

Moreover, some consumers are paid their salaries with prepaid debit cards if they don’t have a bank account for direct deposit.  Wal-Mart, for example, recently said that it would pay employees only on prepaid cards if they did not have a bank account.  But Wal-Mart employees who then use these cards may incur fees, and consumer advocates question why there are any fees at all, particularly when the recipients have no choice but to accept their salary by having the money deposited into a prepaid card.  As Linda Sherry, director of national priorities for Consumer Action, states, “To me, it’s a terrible thing to give people their pay on a card that has fees on it.”

If you are a consumer who purchased a prepaid debit card, or had your salary deposited by your employer into a prepaid debit card, and have incurred fees as a result of using the card, please contact us to discuss your legal options.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The first and second largest distributors of propane gas in the country, AmeriGas Propane, Inc. and Ferrellgas, Inc. (“Defendants”), respectively, began in January, 2009, to allegedly fill and re-fill consumers’ propane gas tanks with 15 cubic feet of gas, rather than the 20 cubic feet of gas which the tank can hold.  At the display cases where consumers re-fill or purchase propane tanks from the Defendants, it plainly states that the purchaser will receive a “full tank” of propane.  As a result, consumers were not allegedly getting what they were promised and what they paid for, and yet were being charged the same price for a “full” propane tank.

The Defendants’ propane display cases are situated in gas stations, hardware stores, convenience stores and at big retail outlets like Wal-Mart and Home Depot.  Ferrellgas propane is also sold under the brand name Blue Rhino.

If you or someone you know purchased propane from Blue Rhino, Ferrellgas and/or AmeriGas, please contact us to discuss your legal options.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link