The recent, highly publicized recall of more than 143 million pounds of beef may make Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Mendes, case no. F052009 (5th Dist. Feb. 15, 2008) more relevant to some people than it otherwise would have been. It’s a suit brought by the Fund against a calf rancher, alleging violation of Penal Code section 597t for confining animals without an “adequate exercise area.” Plaintiffs also include consumers who allege violation of the unfair competition statutes. The consumers “reasonably presumed” that dairy products they purchased were produced from animals kept in compliance with the law and alleged that they lost money by purchasing dairy products that were illegally…
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A New Take on Tobacco Litigation
In Sanders v. Brown, case no. 05-15676 (9th Cir. Sept. 26, 2007), a smoker sued four tobacco companies. Old news, right? But Mr. Sanders didn’t sue them for making him sick. Nor for defrauding him about the addicitveness or ill health effects of tobacco. Nor for engineering cigarettes to enhance their addictive properties. No, Mr. Sanders sued because these companies were charging him too much for a pack of smokes. Specifically, Sanders alleged that the companies were engaged in a price-fixing scheme enabled by the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement reached between the companies and 46 states (and several territories) and the various state statutes implementing the MSA terms.…
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Prop. 64 Knocks Out Unfair Competition Plaintiff Initially on Standing; Insufficient Substantive Allegations Finish Him Off
In Schulz v. Neovi Data Corp., case no. G033879 (June 15, 2007), a decision following remand from the California Supreme Court, the Fourth District Court of Appeal tackles the issue of whether plaintiff can amend his complaint to state a cause of action against online payment services Neovi, PayPal, Inc., PaySystems, Inc., and Ginix, Inc. for abetting an alleged unlawful “matrix scheme” run by EZExpo.com by allowing their payment services to be used by participants to make payments into the scheme. (This Wikipedia entry gives more background on matrix schemes and claims that EZExpo.com is widely believed to be the first such known scheme. The decision itself also describes the…