Our Successes

Major Cases

On January 7, 2015, Judge Amy J. St. Eve issued an opinion denying, in nearly every respect, a motion filed by Rust-Oleum Corporation seeking to dismiss a consumer class action claiming that its Restore Deck & Concrete and Restore 10X decking products suffer from a defect that causes them to fail, leading to extensive damage to consumers’ decks and other property.

The plaintiffs, a group of 40 purchasers of the Restore products, allege that Restore contains latent defects resulting in premature degradation upon application. Plaintiffs further contend that Restore was defective both prior to and during Rust-Oleum’s marketing, selling, and warranting the product to the plaintiffs.

In her nearly 100-page opinion, Judge St. Eve found that the plaintiffs had stated viable claims for breach of express and implied warranty, and that nearly all of the plaintiffs also stated claims for violations of their respective state consumer fraud statutes, negligent misrepresentation, and fraudulent concealment.

LDGA is co-lead counsel in the case along with Audet & Partners LLP. You can read the decision in its entirety here.

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador closed out 2015 with a major victory for the privacy rights of consumers after an Illinois federal judge declined to dismiss the firm’s class action accusing Shutterfly Inc. (and its subsidiary ThisLife LLC) of unlawfully using facial recognition technology to gather “biometric data” from users’ photos.

The plaintiff, Brian Norberg, brought the suit against Shutterfly after a Shutterfly user uploaded a photo of him and, when the user later uploaded more photos of him, was asked if those pictures should be tagged with Norberg's name. Shutterfly was able to recognize the distinct features of Norberg’s face and suggest the tag using facial recognition technology that improperly scans his distinct identifying features and stores that information for later use, in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.

In the ruling, Judge Charles Norgle of the Northern District of Illinois found that because Norberg alleged that the defendants “are using his personal face pattern to analyze and identify [him] in photographs posted to websites” and “he was not presented with a written biometrics policy nor has he consented to have his biometric identifiers used by defendants,” Norberg plausibly stated a claim for relief under the BIPA. Judge Norgle also found that the Court had personal jurisdiction over both Shutterfly and ThisLife.

In Ferguson v. JONAH, a Superior Court case that challenges representations and practices of providers of "gay conversion therapy" under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act ("CFA"), LDGA was part of the trial team that won a complete victory at for our clients, the plaintiff consumers. The unanimous jury verdict was that all of the defendants had violated the CFA by committing numerous misrepresentations about the nature of homosexuality, the alleged “success rate” of the defendants’ practices, the ability of the defendants to turn men from gay to straight, and other things. The jury also unanimously ruled that all of the defendants had committed unconscionable commercial practices in violation of the CFA. This case was the first of its kind in the United States. To read the Complaint, click here.

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador was one of two law firms that prosecuted a Section 11 Securities Act class action against Prudential Financial and underwriters stemming from Prudential’s participation in the auction rate securities market, after that market collapsed in early 2008. The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey granted final approval to a nationwide settlement of $16.5 million.

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador served as the court-appointed discovery chair in an ERISA class action brought against Merck on behalf of its current and former employees who were participants in certain of Merck’s retirement plans. This complex ERISA case charged the fiduciaries of the plans with breaches of fiduciary duty. After many years of intense litigation, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey approved a nationwide settlement worth $49,500,000.

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador won a $1.3 million settlement in a nationwide securities fraud class action, venued in the District of Idaho, for shareholders of Atlas Mining, Inc. LDG was sole lead counsel in that matter.

Lite DePalma Greenberg Afanador obtained a $193 million settlement in a nationwide securities fraud class action against Motorola, Inc. Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador served as Co-Lead Counsel for the Class, and for the court-appointed Lead Plaintiff, the State of New Jersey, Division of Investment. The settlement was reached shortly before trial was scheduled to begin, after four years of hotly contested litigation, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The settlement is one of the largest securities fraud settlements ever in the Seventh Circuit.

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador won $281.5 million in settlements in a nationwide securities class action against Tenet Healthcare Corporation. Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador served as Co-Lead Counsel for the Class. The case was filed in 2003 in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. $215 million of that settlement came from Tenet, and the $1.5 million was paid by the former officers. The Class reached a separate settlement with KPMG for $65 million, which is one of the largest securities fraud settlements with an accountant defendant ever obtained.

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador won final approval of a $768 million settlement in a nationwide insurance sales practices class action against Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador served as Co-Lead Counsel for the Class. The settlement, is the third largest insurance sales practices settlement in history. It represents the culmination of nearly ten years of litigation in courts around the country. Varacallo v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co., 226 F.R.D. 207 (D.N.J. 2005).

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador obtained a $185 million settlement of a nationwide securities class action against Bristol-Myers Squibb. Lite DePalma Greenberg Afanador served as liaison counsel for the Class. The settlement was granted final approval by the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador won final approval of a settlement in a consumer fraud case involving model year 2000 and 2001 Ford F-150 vehicles. The settlement covers four states, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and South Carolina. Lite DePalma Greenberg Afanador obtained certifications of New Jersey and Pennsylvania classes and was named Co-Lead Counsel for those classes. The plaintiffs alleged that Ford had charged extra for towing packages on the F-150 vehicles, that part of that extra charge was for an upgraded radiator, and that, as Ford later admitted, Ford did not equip any of those vehicles with the upgraded radiator. The settlement provides every class member with the right to make a claim for what discovery revealed was the full value of the difference between the standard and upgraded radiators, or for 50% of the actual cost that a class member paid to have the upgraded radiator installed.

Lite DePalma Greenberg Afanador helped achieve three partial settlements in In re Insurance Brokerage Litigation, a multi-district litigation that is pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Lite DePalma Greenberg & Afanador serves as Liaison Counsel for the Commercial Case in that matter. The Zurich Defendants have agreed to pay at least $121.8 million, the Marsh Defendants agreed to pay over $62 million, and the Gallagher Defendants have agreed to pay $28 million.