Class Action

A federal judge will not reconsider his decision limiting the scope of the American Civil Liberties Union's child-welfare suit in U.S. District Court. In a suit filed in April 1990 against Philadelphia and Pennsylvania officials, the ACLU and its New York-based Children's Rights Project sought to overhaul Philadelphia's child-welfare system. The ACLU had hoped for a class action. But in January, Judge Robert F. Kelly said the suit could apply only to the 16 children named as plaintiffs.

IN THE real world, Pennsylvania has a huge budget deficit. In the real world, Harrisburg has shown little appetite for school funding. In the real world, the status quo needs to change in Philadelphia schools. State Rep. Jewell Williams is not living in this real world. We don't know what Matrix-inspired dream the representative is in, but he should snap out of it. He and supporters may believe that protesting against school CEO Paul Vallas' plan to consolidate 10 Comprehensive Early Learning Centers will help protect the education of roughly 400 children.

A group of Lower Merion and Harriton High School parents will meet tonight to discuss ways to derail the possibility that a federal lawsuit over laptop spying could lead to a lengthy and expensive class-action case against their district. Bryn Mawr resident Michael Boni, one of the organizers, said yesterday: "We have spoken to our neighbors and friends, and it seemed that there was a groundswell of opposition to one family with one lawyer bringing this action on behalf of the community.

A federal judge ruled yesterday that six Philadelphia-area cigarette smokers could sue tobacco companies to force them to provide costly medical monitoring for some 2 million smokers in Pennsylvania. Reversing a decision he made in June, U.S. District Judge Clarence C. Newcomer certified the case, Barnes vs. American Tobacco Co., as a class action and set a trial date for the fall - the nation's next major tobacco showdown. The class includes "all current residents of Pennsylvania who are cigarette smokers as of Dec. 1, 1996, and who began smoking before age 19, while they were residents of Pennsylvania," the judge said.

An appellate court panel has denied the request of defense lawyers in the Lipari Landfill case to appeal the class-action status of the lawsuit. The decision, made Tuesday by Judges Michael P. King and Jack L. Lintner, came three months after a Gloucester County Superior Court judge agreed with plaintiffs' lawyers that two classes of people could have been exposed to emissions from the Mantua Township landfill, which once topped the national Superfund list. If the case is successful, the two groups, totaling at least 1,600 people, would be eligible for medical monitoring to identify any harm from the exposure.

Federal lawsuits filed by 71 people whose houses were destroyed or damaged in the May 13 MOVE fire have been joined into a class action by U.S. District Judge Louis H. Pollak, despite the objections of the city and more than three-fourths of the plaintiffs. In an opinion filed yesterday, Pollak ruled that the class will include the owners and residents of the 26 houses who have filed suit seeking civil damages for their losses in federal court and of the 34 houses who have not filed suit.

By Walter Olson In the run-up to the Supreme Court's opinion this week in Wal-Mart v. Dukes , the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals had given the go-ahead to a lawsuit on behalf of a vast number of female Wal-Mart employees, each of whom had supposedly suffered harm as a result of the giant retailer's way of doing business. In the minds of some advocates, the only question remaining was whether the Supreme Court would stand in the way of justice. Prejudging Wal-Mart's guilt without so much as a trial, the left-leaning Alliance for Justice asked: "Will the Supreme Court Protect Wal-Mart's Discrimination Against Women?"

A federal judge has approved as a class action a civil-rights lawsuit filed two years ago against Sunoco Inc. by African American professional employees in the region who contend that the company has blocked avenues to promotion. While not commenting on the lawsuit's merits, U.S. District Judge Clifford Scott Green wrote that the plaintiffs' analysis of Sunoco's regional employment statistics is sufficient to approve the case as a class action and let it move toward trial. Sunoco spokesman Gerald Davis said company officials would meet with lawyers representing the firm to discuss how to respond to the ruling.

Allergan Inc. announced today that two shareholder complaints have been filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia that claim Allergan and SmithKline Beecham made untrue statements or omitted material facts about Allergan's business and future prospects in connection with SmithKline's spinoff of Allergan as a separate company. Also named as a defendant is Gavin Herbert, chairman and chief executive officer of Allergan. Both actions request certification as a class action on behalf of a class of shareholders and seek unspecified damages.

A JENKINTOWN-based law firm filed a consumer fraud class-action suit against Comcast Spectacor, parent company of the Flyers, on behalf of all 2011-12 full season ticketholders on Monday. The complaint alleges that Comcast Spectacor and the Flyers misled season ticketholders by excluding the 2012 Winter Classic game tickets - a regular-season game held at the Phillies' Citizens Bank Park - after the contractual ticketholder agreement stated that fans prepaid for 44 home games, three preseason contests and all 41 regular-season home games.

Securities class-action lawsuits, long a booming area of the law, dropped substantially in 2011, hitting a decade low, according to a study released Wednesday by Stanford University Law School and Cornerstone Research, a consulting and litigation-support firm. The number of securities class-action settlements in 2011 dipped 25 percent, to 65, down from 86 the preceding year, the study says. "The really big bucks were not in the class-action securities fraud market in 2011," said Joseph Grundfest, director of the Stanford law school's Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, which tracks trends in securities litigation.

Cheltenham trailed host Pennsbury by 12 points entering the fourth quarter, but managed a stunning comeback and kept its hopes of reaching the PIAA state basketball tournament alive with a 67-63 District 1 Class AAAA consolation win on Tuesday night. Jarrell Haywood, a senior guard, scored 29 points in the game and hit 14 points in the Panthers' 27-11 fourth-period rally. Nafis Walker supported Haywood with 16 points and 6 rebounds, including 10 fourth-quarter points. Pennsbury, which led by 39-22 at halftime and 52-40 after three quarters, had three players in double figures, led by Kieran Bolger's 25 points.

Years of slipshod record-keeping and careless service by the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office left thousands of victims who never saw the money they were owed - about $30 million, in total - after the sheriff auctioned off their foreclosed homes. Now, authorities are initiating efforts to pay off those debts. The Pennsylvania Treasury Department says it has added more than 2,000 former property owners to its list of people owed money for abandoned-property claims, based on 2,348 Philadelphia sheriff sales worth about $10 million between 2001 and 2005.

LOS ANGELES - Washington Mutual Inc. and its fellow defendants have agreed to pay $208.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from the lender's collapse in 2008, the biggest U.S. bank failure in history. The defendants and lead plaintiff Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board outlined the terms of the agreement in documents filed with U.S. District Court in Seattle on Thursday. The pact calls for Washington Mutual to pay $105 million, for a group of underwriters that includes Goldman, Sachs & Co., to pay $85 million, and for Deloitte & Touche LLP to kick in another $18.5 million.

YOU WOULD think that if Madonna didn't sue Lady Gaga for her homage to "Express Yourself," the wig-wearing pop star was home free from litigation, but a Detroit-area attorney at 1-800-LAWFIRM has filed suit against Gaga for allegedly misleading her fans with an online pitch for donations for victims of the Japan earthquake. There doesn't appear to be any concrete evidence of malfeasance yet, but . . . 1-800-LAWFIRM is concerned about the people of Japan. Gaga's website is selling $5 wristbands that say, "We Pray For Japan.

By Walter Olson In the run-up to the Supreme Court's opinion this week in Wal-Mart v. Dukes , the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals had given the go-ahead to a lawsuit on behalf of a vast number of female Wal-Mart employees, each of whom had supposedly suffered harm as a result of the giant retailer's way of doing business. In the minds of some advocates, the only question remaining was whether the Supreme Court would stand in the way of justice. Prejudging Wal-Mart's guilt without so much as a trial, the left-leaning Alliance for Justice asked: "Will the Supreme Court Protect Wal-Mart's Discrimination Against Women?"

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court blocked the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history yesterday, siding with Wal-Mart and against up to 1.6 million female workers in a decision that makes it harder to mount large-scale bias claims against the nation's other huge companies, too. The justices all agreed that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could not proceed as a class action in its current form, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit...

A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday bolstered the ability of businesses to channel customer and employee complaints into arbitration, ruling that companies can block people from pressing those claims in group actions. Voting 5-4 along ideological lines, the court said an AT&T Inc. unit can enforce a contract provision that requires its wireless customers to press any claims individually in arbitration. The conservative majority said a U.S. arbitration statute trumps a California law that would have invalidated the arbitration requirement.

Class-action lawsuits have long been a battleground between consumer lawyers and attorneys representing cell-phone companies, banks, and other large businesses that deal with millions of customers. On Tuesday, the battle will play out before the U.S. Supreme Court. The court is scheduled to hear arguments in a case pitting AT&T Mobility L.L.C. against a group of California consumers - a case that first arose over a $30.22 dispute but could have huge impact on consumers' and workers' access to the courts.