California Business Litigation Blog

Earlier this week Jacob, an openly gay teenager (identified in court documents as “J.L.”) settled his lawsuit against the Mohawk Central School District in upstate New York. The lawsuit was filed last summer claiming the school district did nothing to stop the bullying against Jacob which included throwing him down a flight of stairs.

Under the terms of the settlement filed in federal court, the district agrees to implement changes including additional staff training, to protect students from harassment. The district is also required to report its progress to the American Civil Liberties Union and federal justice officials.

The settlement also calls for the district to pay $50,000 to Jacob's family and to reimburse them for counseling services. The district did not admit to any wrongdoing under the settlement.

Mohawk Central School District superintendent Joyce Caputo said in a prepared statement that district staff would never knowingly discriminate or tolerate bullying and remain committed to fostering a culture of tolerance and respect. "We recognize there is always room to learn and improve - and we intend to do just that," she said.

Additional information on Jacob’s lawsuit may be found in our previous blog posts by clicking HERE and HERE.

Continue reading "UPDATE: Gay Student Resolves Lawsuit Against NY School District " »

In a lawsuit filed in Federal Court in 2008, City of Detroit employee Susan McBride complained she was "chemically sensitive" and suffered migraines, nausea and coughing caused by a co-worker’s perfume and room deodorizer. McBride also stated that it became difficult for her to breathe and do her job.

The city settled for $100,000. Detroit city employees in the three buildings where McBride works are being cautioned not to wear fragrant products, including colognes, aftershave, perfumes, and deodorants. Additionally, employees are no longer allowed to use candles and air fresheners.

The employee handbook and Americans with Disabilities Act training given to all city employees also will bear warnings.

Because this case did not go to trial, it sets no legal precedent. That is unlikely to deter others from filing similar lawsuits in the near future.

The lawsuit filed claims that McBride’s supervisor didn’t respond to her complaints. Had the supervisor taken action to resolve her complaints, such as communicating with the “scented” employee in search of a solution, all of this may have been avoided.

Let this be a warning to all employers. If/when an employee complains about any condition causing substantial interference with that employee’s ability to perform in the workplace, action must be taken promptly to resolve the complaint.

Continue reading "City Employee Settles for $100,000 in Scented Lawsuit" »

Last month we wrote a post about a lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania alleging that school laptop computer cameras were being remotely activated while in students’ homes.

The most recent update in the case is that numerous parents in the school districts named in the lawsuit have filed documents in federal court opposing the lawsuit and asking to intervene.

Parents objecting to the lawsuit state that they are angry about the unauthorized use of webcams in students’ homes, but are more concerned about the financial impact of a class action lawsuit. Approximately 500 parents have signed a petition opposing the lawsuit which is seeking class action status.

One parent, Larry Silver, stated "We see no benefit to the school district or to the students if a large damage award is gained by the plaintiffs. We want a positive resolution to this matter. We want them (school districts) to get back to their educational mission."

Our original post is available HERE.

An extremely detailed (lengthy) account of events leading to the lawsuit is available on Philly.com.

Continue reading "UPDATE: Parents Oppose Webcam Lawsuit Against School District" »

A class action lawsuit filed last month in federal court (San Francisco) states that the law that stops the University of California from using race as a factor when it comes to admissions of students does not meet the requirements of those who are Latinos, blacks or Native Americans. These groups, the lawsuit claims are underrepresented in the school and are unable to seek redress through the school’s governing board.

The pro affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) brought the lawsuit against the school against Proposition 209. That ballot measure was approved in 1996. The allow prohibits anyone from giving preferences to individuals based on race or gender in any type of employment, education or contracting position.

This law has been challenged before, and the California Supreme Court has held it strong. However, the group believes that the new class action lawsuit is ideally suited for the current times stating that the United States Supreme Court has recently provided two rulings that uphold some school desegregation programs. The lead counsel for the group, Shanta Driver, states that since the law was put into place, the number of Latino and black high school graduation rates and United of California rates have dropped.

According to the complaint, The University's Board of Regents has been unable to set admission policies that include ethnicity and race, as well as gender as factors. The complaint states that this positions parents and students at a disadvantage.

President of the school, Mark Yudof has criticized the law in the past and the university’s legal team is looking into the lawsuit, but would not provide a comment about it.

The lawsuit states that Latino, Native Americans and blacks comprise about 25 percent of the freshmen that are enrolled in UC’s nine undergraduate campuses this year. This number is higher than in 1996. However, these minorities comprise a much larger percentage of the public high school graduates from 1996, from 39 percent in 1996 to 48 percent this year. This shows that the minority students are still sharply underrepresented in the school.

In 1997, a three-judge panel upheld the measure. The measure was originally passed by 56 percent of California voters. California is not the only state with these laws, though. Washington, Michigan and Nebraska currently have similar laws. In the state of Texas and in Florida, the legislatures have since banned similar laws that banned the use of race in school admissions within those states.

Continue reading "California Race Based College Admissions Law Challenged" »

The website Yelp has been accused of trying to extort money from companies. The company is a customer review website and the class action lawsuit filed in court states that Yelp is extorting companies through high pressure sales tactics. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court, alleges unfair business practices.

The lawsuit states that employees from Yelp contact the businesses that are listed on the website and request or demand that the company makes monthly payments to Yelp in order to have the negative reviews removed or modified. Yelp allows users to post favorable or negative customer reviews on the website about local businesses.

The law firms filing suit state that many of the businesses that have reviews from customers and are contacted by Yelp are small companies. The companies feel they have no choice to pay in order to protect further harm on their businesses.

However, the question that the lawsuit needs to answer is whether or not Yelp is offering to run a positive advertisement for the company above the negative reviews or if the company is offering to remove those reviews for a payment. If it is the second, this could be considered extortion since the payoffs to Yelp prevent the website from doing harm to the business.

The lawsuit is based on the California Unfair Competition Law, which dates to 1933 and is a broad law covering a large number of unfair business practices including any type of untrue or misleading advertising.

Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital is the plaintiff in the case. The veterinary hospital asked Yelp to remove false and defamatory review from the listings at the website. The website reviewed to remove the review, but the company’s sale representative called the veterinary hospital numerous times demanding that the hospital pay a hefty $300 payment in order to have the negative reviews hidden or removed from the website.

According to the lawsuit filed, a sales person contacted the hospital and stated that if a one year advertising subscription was purchased that the website would “Hide negative reviews on the Cats and Dogs Yelp.com listing page, or place them lower on the listing page.”

Further, it promised the animal hospital that if it purchased this type of subscription, no negative ads would appear in Google or other search engines. The hospital would also be able to choose a tagline and choose the order in which customer reviews appeared on Yelp.com.

Although the hospital is named the plaintiff in the case, the law firm handling the lawsuit has heard from numerous other small business owners who claim to have experienced the same type of extortion.

Vince Sollitto, vice president of Yelp states that the allegations are false and that many businesses advertise on Yelp when they have negative and positive reviews on the site.
Yelp is one of the largest customer review websites in the world. Each month more than 26 million people read and use the user generated content. The website contains more than eight million reviews.

On a related note, a recent article on TechCrunch.com states that Yelp owners walked away from a Google buyout offer worth over half a Billion dollars in December 2009.

Continue reading "Lawsuit Alleges Yelp Extorting Money from Business Owners" »