Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has made it harder for consumers who want to dispute their contracts for cell phones, cable television and other services to band together to make their claims. The court, in a 5-4 ruling Wednesday, invalidated a California law that kept consumers out of contractually-obligated arbitration with businesses.

Law: If there was ever such a thing as junk justice, the suit against Wal-Mart now in the Supreme Court is exhibit A. By claiming that evidence is no longer needed to prove discrimination, what's proven is the greed of lawyers. Tuesday was a queasy day at the Supreme Court as lawyers in the largest class-action lawsuit in history made the claim that Wal-Mart discriminated against all 1.6 million of its female employees. Nearly all the justices reportedly were unimpressed with the overreaching premise. It boils down to the idea that if six women could prove discrimination at one company...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court appears ready to block a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of up to 1.6 million women, and that could make it harder for other workers nationwide to bring class-action claims against large employers. The 10-year-old lawsuit, argued in lively exchanges at the court Tuesday, claims that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest employer, favors men over women in pay and promotions. Billions of dollars are at stake if it is allowed to go forward. The case also could affect the future of other class-action lawsuits that pool modest individual claims into a...

A sharply divided federal appeals court on Monday exposed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to billions of dollars in legal damages when it ruled a massive class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination over pay for female workers can go to trial. In its 6-5 ruling, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said the world's largest private employer will have to face charges that it pays women less than men for the same jobs and that female employees receive fewer promotions and have to wait longer for those promotions than male counterparts. The retailer has fiercely fought the lawsuit since it was...

WASHINGTON — Christine Kwapnoski hasn't done too badly in nearly 25 years in the Wal-Mart family, making more than $60,000 a year in a job she enjoys most days. But Kwapnoski said she faced obstacles at Wal-Mart-owned Sam's Club stores in both Missouri and California: Men making more than women and getting promoted faster. [SNIP] The 46-year-old single mother of two is one of the named plaintiffs in a suit that will be argued at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. At stake is whether the suit can go forward as a class action that could involve 500,000 to 1.6...

Citigroup saw several red flags in the dealings of Bernard Madoff's firm years before his multibillion-dollar fraud was exposed in late 2008, the firm's liquidator said in a newly unsealed lawsuit. Irving Picard, a court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money for former Madoff clients, made the accusations in one of several complaints he has filed against big banks he says "enabled" the massive, decades-long Ponzi scheme by turning a blind eye to it. "Citi had access to and received information placing it on inquiry notice that Madoff's advisory business was potentially a fraud, and/or that Madoff was making hundreds of...

Bernard L. Madoff said he never thought the collapse of his Ponzi scheme would cause the sort of destruction that has befallen his family. In his first interview for publication since his arrest in December 2008, Mr. Madoff — looking noticeably thinner and rumpled in khaki prison garb — maintained that family members knew nothing about his crimes. But during a private two-hour interview in a visitor room here on Tuesday, and in earlier e-mail exchanges, he asserted that unidentified banks and hedge funds were somehow “complicit” in his elaborate fraud, an about-face from earlier claims that he was the...

The trustee liquidating Madoff’s asset management firm, has filed a complaint against JPMorgan Chase, claiming the bank had suspicions about Madoff’s Ponzi scheme going back to at least 2006, but waited until 2008 to alert authorities while it earned hundreds of millions of dollars from doing business with Madoff. The complaint seeks to recover nearly $1 billion in fees and profits, and an additional $5.4 billion in damages, for JPMorgan Chase’s decades-long role as primary banker for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities’ (BLMIS), allegedly aiding and abetting Madoff’s fraud. “Incredibly, the bank’s top executives were warned in blunt terms about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WjaddBoTgI

More than thirty thousand people have signed a class action lawsuit against the unconstitutional Obamacare. The deadline to join is May 31st. We need to keep sending the socialist in Washington D.C. the message we will not tolerate the usurpation of the Constitution to enslave the people! We need to remind them the people are the government and will have the final say as to how we are governed! It's time to make a big push by joining the lawsuit!

In a new twist on lawsuits against Obamacare, TN attorney Van Irion filed a national class action in Federal court. The suit challenges Obamacare on the basis that Congress is not authorized by the Constitution to regulate health care. Mr. Irion is asking the courts to re-evaluate the Commerce clause precedent, arguing that current precedent in effect destroys the intent of the Constitution and specifically the 10th Amendment. (PRWEB) April 19, 2010 -- Over 10,000 Americans have joined a lawsuit against Obamacare (http://obamacareclassaction.com). In a new twist on lawsuits against Obamacare, TN constitutional attorney and congressional candidate (http://www.van4congress.org/) Van Irion...

Van Irion, Constitutional Attorney and candidate for the 3rd Congressional District of Tennessee filed a constitutional challenge to the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” yesterday at 2pm at the United States District Court in Chattanooga, TN. Irion said he considered taking this step after his trip to Nashville last month to support the Health Care Freedom Act and other bills proposed to protect Tennessean’s against Obamacare. “It became evident to me that the Attorney General was unlikely to take action. Tuesday’s announcement simply confirmed what I suspected.” Irion says that the AG’s analysis misses the point. “Mr. Cooper bases...

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)-An otherwise dreary Monday in the nation's capital turned especially bright yesterday for noted legal reformer Ted Frank after learning he helped to keep nearly $3 million out of the pockets of trial lawyers - at least for now.

A federal judge in Manhattan dismissed most of a lawsuit against Milberg LLP, brought by former clients who accused the law firm of paying them millions of dollars to serve as lead plaintiffs in class actions. The plaintiffs sought to recover their attorneys' fees. U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska dismissed the plaintiffs' racketeering claims as time-barred, but kept alive a breach of fiduciary duty charge. Melvyn Weiss, David Bershad, William Lerach and Steven Schulman, four ex-partners of the law firm, pleaded guilty to paying kickbacks to clients in order to induce them to file suits. Prosecutors said the fraud...

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo recently has been going after allegedly crooked investment consultants for bribing their way into doing business with the state's giant pension fund. However, Cuomo has stated that he won't be subjecting class action firms (from which he has reportedly received large campaign contributions) to similar scrutiny for similar behavior. When properly motivated, I believe class action lawsuits provide necessary checks and balances in our financial system. But given how widely they're misused, I've also urged the Department of Justice to look into potential abuses. As it exists today, the marketing of class action legal...

For arbitration’s opponents, ensuring that consumers can go to court is not the end goal. It is actually the first step of a two-step dance at the plaintiffs’ lawyer prom. The second step is to allow these consumer cases to become large class actions—the kind that are famous for making a relatively few plaintiffs’ lawyers rich while giving the consumer masses pennies on the dollar, or even coupons, for their trouble.

Behind the scenes, at many military bases across the country and around the world, a not-too quiet challenge is developing against Barack Obama and his questionable qualifications to be President of the United States. Most FReepers are familiar with the ongoing civil litigation against Obama. Plaintiffs claim he is not constitutionally qualified to be president because he does not meet the legal description of a “natural-born citizen.” Obama’s lawyers have never entered pleadings on the MERITS of the plaintiffs’ cases. They oppose the plaintiffs’ suits on the issue of “standing.” They claim the plaintiff’s do not have a right to...

If you bought a Bluetooth headset between June 30, 2002 and February 19, 2009, the settlement of a class action lawsuit may affect your rights. The Settlement resolves claims in a class action lawsuit that Bluetooth headsets manufactured by Motorola, Inc.; Plantronics, Inc.; or GN Netcom, Inc. / "Jabra" (“Defendants”) create a risk of hearing loss. The lawsuit also claims Defendants acted wrongfully when they did not warn consumer of that risk, if it exists. The Defendants deny their Bluetooth headsets are unsafe or that they did anything wrong. Defendants are settling only to avoid the risk and expense...

If you were hit with an overdraft fee from Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) (or one of the banks it acquired) between 2000 and 2007, you may be in for a little cash. Bank of America recently settled a class-action lawsuit that alleged it (and by extension, Fleet Bank, LaSalle Bank and U.S. Trust Company, which it acquired during that period) changed the posting order of transactions and embarked on other activities in order to increase the revenue it received from non-sufficient funds fees, overdraft fees and similar charges. The lawsuit, which was settled for $35 million, also alleged that the...

WICHITA, Kan.—A federal judge on Friday denied a request by a patient-advocacy group to sue the federal government on behalf of patients of a physician who is charged with running a "pill mill" linked to 56 overdose deaths. U.S. District Judge Wesley Brown urged about 40 of Dr. Stephen Schneider's patients, some of whom had come to the hearing on crutches, to seek care at the emergency room, not the court. "If someone can prevent a criminal prosecution by filing a civil suit, there would be a flood of civil suits," Brown told the courtroom. The judge said the patients...