Least Consumer-Friendly Lawsuits of 2011

Every year, thousands of individuals exercise their constitutional right to file a civil claim in court. Most often, the purpose of these lawsuits is to seek compensation for some sort of wrongdoing or injury. It’s often a difficult, time-consuming and expensive process. But a small percentage of these cases are absolutely ridiculous. These cases have been coined “frivolous lawsuits.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) complied a list called The Most Ridiculous Lawsuits of 2011. The list ranks the year’s most frivolous lawsuits as voted on by the readers of FacesofLawsuitAbuse.org. The ranking includes some legitimately wacky entries, such as one case wherein a convict sued the couple he kidnapped for not helping him evade police. But on closer inspection, some of the other claims don’t seem so baseless at all.

“Sometimes these stories aren’t as frivolous as they appear,” says David Arkush, director of the Congress watch division at Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy group. “Just look at the movie Hot Coffee [a documentary about the infamous McDonald's coffee case wherein a woman suffered severe, life-threatening burns largely because McDonald's kept its java at an extremely hazardous temperature]. That movie does a good job of highlighting the spin.”

The spin that Arkush mentions is a decades-old game played out by organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that were founded to further the interests of big business, often by sacrificing the rights of consumers. Arkush believes the ILR’s latest list is just another way to tarnish the reputation of the civil justice system while distracting the public from this year’s court cases that significantly rolled back the rights of consumers.

The Frivolous Lawsuit Spin

Several of the cases on the ILR’s annual list do seem to have little merit. Take for example the case where a woman sued over the fact that she felt the movie trailer for Drive deceptively characterized the film. Or take the case where a man sued a bar for not searching patrons for weapons, despite the fact that the man himself illegally carried a gun into the bar, got drunk and sustained injury in a shootout between himself and another patron.

But when reviewing the legal documents involved in some of the other cases that made the ILR’s list, it becomes clear just how far from frivolous some of these suits actually are.

For example, take the case where a mother sued Chuck E. Cheese, alleging some of the establishment’s games violate California gambling laws and encourage children to gamble. A quick look at the photos of the games in question reveals that some are little more than kid-friendly slot machines. Whether this is a violation of the law is up to the courts, but on its face, there seems to be a valid reason for the suit, which would hardly make it frivolous.

David Arkush

Or take the case where a woman sued Century 21 over $.80. Though the class action case may sound strange—and was subsequently dropped—it actually dealt with a potentially fraudulent business practice. Tova Gerson had bought more than $100 worth of merchandise from the department store. When making her purchase, she used a coupon that allowed her to save $5 on any purchase $50 or greater. A short while after making her purchase, she returned an $18 item. The store refunded her money minus $.80 she had saved, on a prorated basis, by using the coupon.

“Filing a suit over $.80 might seem strange, but think about the amount if the department store did this on a massive scale,” Arkush says. “We could be talking about a significant amount of money.”

Least Consumer-Friendly Lawsuits of 2011

Baseless lawsuits exist. But what has an even greater impact on consumers and the civil justice system as a whole are the handful of cases that have the potential to reshape consumer law and curtail the rights of the consumers. Below are the least consumer-friendly lawsuits and legal issues of 2011:

• AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion: The absolute least consumer-friendly case of 2011, the AT&T lawsuit effectively allows companies to block consumers from banding together to form a class and file a suit. Instead, consumers are bound by forced-arbitration agreements, which means they must face a company as an individual and they are effectively blocked access to the courts.
• The Wal-Mart Class Action: Famous for being the largest civil rights class action in U.S. history, the case was filed on behalf of female employees of Wal-Mart, who alleged sexual discrimination, specifically claiming disparities in promotions and pay. In 2011, the Supreme Court ruled in Wal-Mart’s favor, effectively ending the decade-old battle. Lawyers are currently reassembling smaller classes by state in an effort to tailor their claim more narrowly. How the decision will affect class actions in the future remains to be seen, but legal experts believe it will likely have negative consequences for the consumer.
• Illegal Foreclosures: The implosion of the housing market has hurt many, from homeowners to builders. But some mortgage lenders are pouring salt in open wounds by trying to illegally foreclose on homeowners’ properties. In fact, the issue has become such a huge problem that states are passing laws to deter these shady practices. For example, Nevada passed a law last year to make illegally foreclosing on a home a felony.
• Illegal Debt Collections: Like the illegal foreclosure cases, there were many incidents reported of illegal debt collection practices in 2011 as well. Taking advantage of consumers coping with an uncertain economy, debt collectors used a variety of banned practices to get people to pay up. According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers filed nearly 165,000 complaints alleging illegal debt-collection practices in 2011. That’s about 17 percent more complaints than 2010.
• Social Media Privacy Jeopardized: In a case out of Virginia, a court sided in favor of the government, laying the groundwork for officials to have secret access to user information of all online tools hosted in the U.S. The judge in the case, which involved the Wikileaks website, sided in favor of allowing government officials to collect private records of three Twitter users. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy-rights advocacy group involved in the case, says the decision might be used to justify warrantless searches by the government into records collected by Internet services about their users.
• Travelers’ Rights Eroding: Travelers gained a slight win and a huge loss this year with the opinion in Epic v. Department of Homeland Security. The case concerned the legality of the TSA’s use of full-body scanners in airports. EPIC, a privacy-rights advocacy group, had hoped it would win a partial ban on the use of the invasive and potentially harmful machines. Instead, the court upheld the constitutionality of the use of the machines but did rule that travelers could opt for a full-body pat-down instead.