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No class-action for suits over Calif. fish kill
Class Action News |
2011/08/09 10:06
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An appeals court has rejected class-action status for a lawsuit prompted by efforts to kill off an invasive fish in Northern California.
The Sacramento Bee says the 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled last week that people suing the state had too little in common to comprise a single class and must sue individually.
In 2007, the state Fish and Game Department dumped thousands of gallons of poison into Lake Davis in Plumas County to kill the voracious northern pike. The lake was closed for several months.
The city of Portola and a number of businesses and property owners sued in 2009, arguing that the action caused a decline in tourism that hurt their income, property values and tax receipts. |
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Bank of Hawaii settles overdraft fee class-action lawsuit
Class Action News |
2011/07/20 16:15
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A tentative $9 million settlement with Bank of Hawaii requires the bank to pay each of its customers who had more than one overdraft fee in a day over the last five years.
Bank of Hawaii, the state's second-largest bank, reached the class-action lawsuit settlement in response to claims that the bank improperly charged overdraft fees on debit card transactions, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday.
The lawsuit accused the bank of systematically re-ordering debit card transactions from highest dollar amount to lowest dollar amount, a practice that allowed the bank to deplete customers' available funds as quickly as possible while maximizing the number of overdraft fees.
The $9 million will be put in a settlement fund used to refund customers and pay attorneys' fees, administrative and other costs in exchange for a complete release of all claims against the company, the bank said. It's unclear how many Bank of Hawaii customers are eligible for refunds.
Similar lawsuits against American Savings Bank and Central Pacific Bank, the state's third- and fourth-largest banks, also are pending. |
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Ryan & Maniskas, LLP Announces Class Action Lawsuit
Class Action News |
2011/07/16 04:27
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Ryan & Maniskas, LLP (www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/ebix) announces that it has filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of purchasers of the common stock of Ebix, Inc. ("Ebix" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: EBIX) between May 6, 2009 through June 30, 2011, inclusive (the "Class Period").
For more information regarding this class action suit, please contact Ryan & Maniskas, LLP (Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire) toll-free at (877) 316-3218 or by email at rmaniskas@rmclasslaw.com or visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/ebix.
Ebix supplies software and electronic commerce solutions to the insurance industry. The Complaint alleges that during the Class Period, Defendants issued a series of materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company's business and financial results. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) the Company's tax provisions did not conform to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles; (2) the Company overstated its account receivables; (3) the Company consistently failed to tie customer payments to specific invoices; (4) the Company lacked adequate internal and financial controls; and (5) as a result of the foregoing, the Company's statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.
On March 24, 2011, Seeking Alpha published a report ("Report”) accusing the Company of engaging in a number of accounting manipulations, including: (a) manipulating stated organic growth; (b) overstating profit margins; (c) overstating its accounts receivables; (d) manipulating tax liabilities; and (e) inflating cash flows. The Report concluded that the Company’s "problems run deeper than accounting. The EBIX story also comes with multiple auditor resignations, governance abuses, misrepresented organic growth, questionable cash flow and a contentious CEO.” On this news, the Company’s shares plummeted $7.20 per share, or nearly 24%, to close on March 24, 2011, at $22.52 per share, on unusually heavy trading volume.
On June 30, 2011, the media reported that the shareholders of Peak Performance Solutions, Inc. ("Peak”), who sold their business to Ebix, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, claiming that Ebix was consistently unable to bill customers properly, tie customer payments to invoices, and provide basic financial data or calculate revenues for Peak. On this news, the Company's shares declined an additional $1.30 or more than 6% and closed at $19.05.
If you are a member of the class, you may, no later than September 12, 2011, request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff of the class. A lead plaintiff is a representative party that acts on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member's claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Under certain circumstances, one or more class members may together serve as "lead plaintiff." Your ability to share in any recovery is not, however, affected by the decision whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. You may retain Ryan & Maniskas, LLP or other counsel of your choice, to serve as your counsel in this action.
For more information about the case or to participate online, please visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/ebix or contact Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire toll-free at (877) 316-3218, or by e-mail at rmaniskas@rmclasslaw.com. For more information about class action cases in general or to learn more about Ryan & Maniskas, LLP, please visit our website: www.rmclasslaw.com.
Ryan & Maniskas, LLP is a national shareholder litigation firm. Ryan & Maniskas, LLP is devoted to protecting the interests of individual and institutional investors in shareholder actions in state and federal courts nationwide. |
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Soldiers seek foreclosures class action
Class Action News |
2011/07/15 16:25
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Lawyers said they hope to get class action certification in New York for an increasing number of active-duty U.S. soldiers fighting mortgage foreclosures.
A federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in New York alleges CitiMortgage should have done a quick Internet check before foreclosing on the home of Army Sgt. Jorge Rodriguez of Del Valle, Texas, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Thursday.
In 2003, Rodriguez purchased a home with a mortgage eventually sold to CitiMortgage. He was deployed in 2006, and while he was in training at Fort Hood, Texas, the mortgage company sold his home in a foreclosure sale, the newspaper said.
Rodriguez was sent to Iraq and was on active duty until August 2007.
The federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act prohibits the foreclosure sale of an active-duty soldier's home without a highly detailed court order. Lenders can access a certain Web site to learn whether a soldier is on active duty, the newspaper said.
"It's just an issue that we have seen percolating throughout the country," said Gary Lynch of Sewickley, Pa., an attorney for the plaintiffs. "Major lenders operated on perhaps what might be a fundamental misunderstanding of the requirements of the statute."
The complaint indicates CitiMortgage may have "initiated thousands of foreclosure proceedings ... without adequate safeguards to ensure that service members on active duty were not targeted." |
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WaMu settles class action suit for $208.5 million
Class Action News |
2011/07/01 22:09
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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. In exchange, the plaintiffs have agreed to dismiss all claims against the lender and its co-defendants. The settlement must be approved by a bankruptcy court overseeing Washington Mutual's reorganization plan. In 2008, the federal government seized WMI's flagship bank, based in Seattle, and sold its assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion. Plaintiffs ranging from huge pension funds to small individual investigators accused WMI and its banking executives of securities fraud, claiming the bank's lending standards and practices were misrepresented, questionable business practices were not disclosed and federal financial reports were misleading. The Ontario teachers' pension fund has claimed it lost $24 million from alleged wrongdoing by WMI and the other defendants. Under the terms of the settlement deal, WMI and the other defendants did not admit any wrongdoing. |
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Decision in Wal-Mart case a blow to class actions
Class Action News |
2011/06/21 17:18
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Mounting a large-scale bias claim against a huge company will be more difficult in light of a Supreme Court decision that found no convincing proof of discrimination on which to allow a class action against retail giant Wal-Mart on behalf of as many as 1.6 million women. All the justices agreed in the decision released Monday that the case couldn't proceed as a class action in its current form, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. By a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the court also said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit. While individuals could still pursue their own cases, they would continue with the prospect of costly legal fees and long time frames and ultimately lack the power that would have accompanied the largest sex-discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history. Two of the named plaintiffs, Christine Kwapnoski and Betty Dukes, vowed to continue their fight, even as they expressed disappointment about the ruling. "We still are determined to go forward to present our case in court. We believe we will prevail there," said Dukes, a greeter at the Wal-Mart in Pittsburg, Calif.
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