Judge Blasts Plaintiff's Lawyers in Denying Class Certification

Frivolous Lawsuits and Class Action Lawsuits

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Needless to say this sucks...

Judge Blasts Plaintiff's Lawyers in Denying Class Certification

Posted by Peter Lattman
Thursday, April 26, 2007

"The conduct in this action does not look good, does not sound good, and does not smell good. In fact, it reeks . . . . It is clear from the record that plaintiffs counsel, and not plaintiff, is the driving force behind this action."

Those fighting words came from the Marilyn Hall Patel, a federal judge in San Francisco who denied class certification yesterday in a lawsuit filed against Oreck Direct, the vacuum-cleaner company. Here's the opinion.

The plaintiff sued Oreck alleging he had suffered from allergies and that an air purifier sold by the company failed to alleviate his symptoms. The lawyers had asked to certify a class of more than 70,000 people.

Judge Patel said that the plaintiffs' lawyers in the case had manufactured their lawsuit against the defendant after it was revealed that they found the lead plaintiff through a newspaper ad. She ticked off her findings:

Plaintiff acknowledges that he became a plaintiff in this action by responding to an advertisement by plaintiff's counsel, Westrup Klick LLP, in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Plaintiff testified that plaintiff's counsel told him "they were going to have a lawsuit," and that they were looking for a representative for a class action suit.

Plaintiff met his attorney in person for the first time the day before his deposition in this action.

Plaintiff did not read the complaint before it was filed.

David Aronoff at Thelen Reid represents Oreck. He called the decision "groundbreaking." The Law Blog has a call into Mark Van Buskirk and Duane Westrup of Westrup Klick in Long Beach, Calif., and will update our post when we get a response.

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